The Truth after Seven Years Pt. 01

Simon, on the other hand, was maybe five feet seven inches and all of a hundred and forty pounds. Becky was a charming girl and smart as a whip. Both Simon and Becky would get full academic scholarships to college. While Becky was not a raving beauty, she did have one significant attribute. She had big breasts.

As Tuck was making his way around the room, he finally stopped at Simon and Becky's table. He stood there, leering at Becky, and then reached in with both his hands and squeezed Becky's tits. She screamed, and Simon jumped up to defend her. There was no contest, Tuck put Simon on the floor with one punch. That was all my father needed to see. He was out of his seat before anyone knew it and slammed into Tuck. They both tumbled to the floor, and my father got two hard punches in on Tuck's face before the two were pulled apart.

Needless to say, Tuck did not take well to his face being messed up. Thus, the feud between them started. It only got worse before school started. Tuck felt my father had taken an unfair advantage. So, in typical Tuck fashion, three days later, he challenged my father to a fight.

Never one to back down, my father accepted and agreed to meet under the Highway one bridge. Word spread quickly and quietly amongst the students. At the appointed time, there were at least two hundred kids gathered to watch the fight.

Nobody thought my father stood a chance. Tuck was so much bigger, and he had a reputation as a brawler. The thing about Tuck was that he was a bully. He was so much bigger than most kids his age that he wasn't used to someone standing up to him. The fact that my father had infuriated him. He told all his friends that he was going to pound my father into the ground. Clearly, Tuck had no idea what my father was about.

They circled each other as the crowd buzzed with excitement. They all expected blood to flow. However, there wasn't any blood. Tuck tried to overpower my father and kept throwing "haymakers." None of them landed. My father kept dancing in and out, so Tuck tried throwing harder punches. However, the more punches he threw, the more tired he became. My father just continued to bob and weave, throwing a jab every so often. My father explained that, in a fight, patience is a crucial virtue. My dad waited for just the right moment, and then he stepped in when Tuck was off-balance. He drove his right fist into Tuck's stomach as hard as he could. The blow forced all the air out of Tuck's lungs, and Tuck collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. The fight was over. However, the hatred between the two had grown dramatically.

Sometime during my father's sophomore year, he had discovered the girl of his dreams, and my future mom, Ashley Blakley. At the time, Ashley's father was a small but growing developer in the area. She had just transferred to the school at the beginning of my father's freshman year. However, they didn't meet until their sophomore year. Of course, my future mom was drawn to my dad because he was a star athlete and one of the most popular kinds in school.

That football season, both Clifton and Chester went undefeated in the regular season. They met in the regionals finals where Chester prevailed 31-24. Tuck passed for three hundred and ninety-four yards. Because Clifton lost, no one noticed that my father had thrown for four hundred and fourteen yards. No one seemed to say much either about the fact that Chester lost its next game and was eliminated from any chance of a state championship.

My father was smitten with Ashley, and my future mother seemed taken with my father. Or at least, she appeared to be. Then they started dating exclusively. But when Clifton lost in the regionals, somehow Ashley met and started dating Tuck. The fact that Ashley broke up with my father for Tuck was a bitter pill for my dad to swallow. After that, my father's distaste for Tuck grew exponentially.

What my father didn't understand was that his future wife was a totally self-centered bitch. Funny, even after everything that my mother did to my father, I'm not sure that he would ever agree with my description of his wife. However, in all fairness to my dad, most people didn't see this side of Ashley either.

When I was young, I didn't understand the distance between us. As I grew older, I studied my mother and learned what she was all about. My mother was very clever in how she interacted with people. Somehow, she managed to make people believe that she cared about them. In truth, the way my mom worked it, she always subtlety brought the attention back to herself. She was so good at doing that that people hardly ever noticed.

My mother was the most socially conscious person I ever knew. I used to think that she was just fond of my father. However, years later I realized that my mother did love her husband on some level. She may have loved my father, but she always loved herself more. It didn't hurt that my father was a very well respected and very well to do man who interacted in the proper social circles. The first two descriptions of my dad are entirely accurate. However, he only moved in those social circles reluctantly. Still, they included the people, whose attention, my mother craved. My father was not into the social swirl that my mother so loved, but he went along with it because he loved my mom. He did like to attend activities that he felt benefited the community, like the "Blue and White Ball."

Ashley was a beautiful girl and then a beautiful woman. She had that stunning girl next door look with a sexiness that made men putty in her hands. While she was married to my dad, I had heard rumors of her having affairs. I never knew one way or another, and my father never spoke on the subject. However, if I had to guess, I'd say there was at least some truth to them. I had seen my mother work her wiles on my father to get what she wanted. I had no doubt she would use her sexuality with other men if she wanted something.

If my mother had affairs, and I believe she did, it had to benefit her. She proved that during her high school years. Even though my father and Ashley were going steady, my future mom did find someone she thought was better - Tuck. This put her in a higher social circle, and as a result, she dumped my father to be with her "new love." This first breakup hurt my dad, but he recovered.

After the breakup, there was nothing for my dad to do but lick his wounds. He threw himself into his work at the ranch and preparation for the next football season. This left little time for my father to think about his former girlfriend.

When the next football season rolled around, supporters of Chester and Clifton expected big things. As with the previous season, both schools went through their regular schedules undefeated. And as the playoff schedule had it, they met in the divisional finals. Once again, Chester came away with the victory 27-24.

Tuck threw for four hundred and thirty-two yards and won the game on a "Hail Mary" pass in the last minute. No one seems to recall that the defender slipped and fell down on that play. Nor did they remember that my dad threw for four hundred and four yards and had taken his team from the two-yard line, down the field and scored and put Clifton ahead 24-20 with less than four minutes to go. Again, no one seemed to remember that with a minute and seventeen seconds left, my father drove his team to Chester's eleven-yard line. And on the last play of the game, my dad threw a perfect strike to his receiver at the two-yard line, but as happens sometimes, the receiver started to run before he secured the ball. It fell incomplete. Now, there has been a debate for many years as to whether that receiver could have scored. When the ball hit the receiver's hands, there were two defenders just inside the goal line. I tend to think he would have scored, but I'm prejudiced. And one last thing, no one remembered that Chester, again, lost its next game.

Since Ashley was still going to Clifton, my dad saw her almost every day during school hours. After the initial shock of their breakup, my father started dating other girls. Yet, he never found one that he felt as deeply about as he did about Ashley. My dad also decided that Ashley had the right to choose who she wanted to be with, so he would stick to being friends only. Nevertheless, my father's hated of Tuck continued to grow.

My father's senior year was the best of his four years at Clifton. He was not only voted Captain of the football team, but also President of the Student Council. At the Halloween dance, my father and future mother were the King and Queen of the festival. According to my dad, it galled the hell out of Tuck when he the King and Queen take to the floor for the first dance. And, of course, during that dance, my father held Ashley tight, and according to him, she didn't resist.

The senior year football season, for my dad, was the highlight of his athletic career. It was also this game that led to the ultimate devastation later on in his life. I have thought about that year, and for my father's sake, I wish that things had turned out differently.

That season progressed as every supporter of Clifton high hoped it would. Once again, Clifton pounded through the regular season undefeated. Chester did likewise, except that they crush every opponent by at least thirty points.

That year, the playoff schedule had been reshuffled once again. The playoff brackets laid out in such a way that both Chester and Clifton wound up facing each other for the State championship. One of the reasons that Chester was such a dominant team was that the coach had finally decided to use Tuck as a two-way player. You have to give Tuck credit on this, it had to be exhausting playing every down. My father always acknowledged that Tuck was a fabulous athlete, it was just that Tuck was a shitty person.

The State Championship game was a huge deal. Not only was the game going to be played in a stadium on the outskirts of the capital, but it was going to be televised throughout the state. By this time, Tuck had twenty or more scholarship offers. All the biggest and best football colleges wanted him. However, he had not committed to any of them. Rumor had it that he was waiting to see where Ashley was going to college to make his decision. I doubt that's true, but women love the romance of it all. From everything I've heard, Tuck was a selfish bastard who only thought about himself. That is except for when it came to Ashley. But even with that, I believe he would have eventually have selected the highest-rated college that offered him a scholarship. Wherever he decided to go, he was arrogant enough to expect that Ashley would wait for him. There was no doubt that he absolutely adored my mother, which made him perfect for her. He was a sports hero, his parents belonged to all the right clubs, and he seemed destined for greatness.

Of all the great games my father played over his high school career, his best was this championship game. It was also the defining moment when the hatred between my father and Tuck was cast in concrete.

The first half of the game was basically an offensive show. Between the two, Tuck and my father combined to put up six hundred and eighty passing yards. There was virtually no ground game at all. For Clifton, this was due to the farm and ranch boys' rock hardness on the defensive line. For Chester, it was mostly on the strength of Tuck's middle linebacker play.

Through the first half and most of the way through the third quarter, the college coaches must have been salivating at the prospect of Tuck playing for them. Even after everything that had passed between them, my father would always say that Tuck was the athlete with the best natural ability he had ever seen.

All through the first three quarters, Tuck had punished my father every chance he got. This game was played before all the protections were put in to safeguard quarterbacks. So, every time Tuck blitzed, he would pile-drive my father into the ground. But every time that happened, my dad would pop back up and smile at him. The smiles eventually began to annoy Tuck, and he started hitting my dad late. Most of those late hits produced no penalties. However, one rare one, that was called cost Chester.

It was fourth and goal at the Chester three-yard line and Clifton decided to go for it. The score was knotted at 31-31 at the time. The Clifton coach had decided that a field goal wouldn't do it and called for a simple slant pass. But Chester had that covered, so my dad had to scramble. Finally, he found Randy Thompson in the far corner of the end zone. My father fired the ball hurriedly and was watching its flight when Tuck creamed him. My father admitted that he saw stars after that hit and got up slowly. When he was upright, he saw the flag on the field. Tuck had been flagged for unnecessary roughness. My father was delighted as his pass had sailed just a tad too high.

At the one-yard line, the Clifton coach called three straight running plays. Tuck filled the gap each time, and Clifton only managed to move the ball a half-yard. The third quarter ended before Clifton's coach had decided whether to go for it or not.

With the whistle to start the fourth quarter, it quickly became apparent that Clifton was going for it. Like the previous fourth down play, the coach had called for a slant pass, only this time coming from the other side. However, like the other play, it was covered. After that, my dad was scrambling for his life with Tuck in hot pursuit. I must have watched the film of that one play, a hundred times. Tuck was closing in on my dad, and just when it looked like there was no way my father wasn't going to be sacked, he turned and ducked. Tuck's knee caught my father's helmet, and he went down in agony. Somehow, my father remained upright and scampered into the end zone.

No one realized it at the time, but Tuck's knee colliding with my father's helmet had done considerable damage. As a result, Tuck sat out two plays and then went back into the game. But it was clear that he wasn't as mobile as he had been.

After that last touchdown, the defenses stiffened, and the only scoring after that was a field goal by Chester. Still, with almost nine minutes left in the game, neither team could play conservatively. So, the next time Clifton had the ball, my father was picking apart the Chester secondary. But then, one of his passes was tipped at the line of scrimmage and deflected into Tuck's hands. Tuck immediately took off down the field, and it looked like he had clear sailing. But my father was after him in a flash. An uninjured Tuck might have made it but slowed by his bad knee, and the perfect angle my father had taken, there was a violent collision at the twenty-yard line.

My dad not only caught up to Tuck, but he nailed him. He launched himself into Tuck's legs. And as they fell, Tuck shattered his ankle and fumbled the ball. Clifton now had possession of the ball, and Tuck was out of the game. From then on, it wasn't a contest, Clifton scored once more, and the final score was 45-31. It was the first and only, to this date, state championship for Clifton.

In true Chester Academy fashion, now that Tuck was of no use to them, his father was let go. This happened right after his son's graduation, so as not to raise any eyebrows. Of course, it did raise many eyebrows, but no one did anything about it.

Tuck's father headed west and got another job in California. All of those colleges that were buzzing around Tuck dwindled down until there was only one. Northwestern was willing to give Tuck a try. But he had to start as a walk-on. If he made the team, he'd be given a full scholarship. Tuck rehabbed his knee and his ankle, but he was never able to recapture the ability he once had. He didn't make Northwestern's team. At that point, my father lost track of Tuck. Besides, Ashley had reentered his life.

Ashley had pretty much dumped Tuck a month after the State Championship game. She was fed up with his sour mood, and the fact that he couldn't do anything because of his injuries. It was a month or two after that before my father and her reconnected. They dated while my father completed his two-year degree in animal husbandry at the local college. Ashley, on the other hand, went to the State University but quit in her first year. She had, for her whole life, been a big fish in a small pond. At the University, it was an ocean of students, and she was a minnow. Anyway, my mom and dad were married a month after he graduated. Ashley became pregnant shortly after that with my sister. I came along two years later.

From what I understand, my father was extremely happy for the first fourteen years he spent with his wife. I never knew from day to day what my mother's feelings were about the marriage. She blew hot and cold. Besides, as I already knew, it was all about her. What really kept the peace in the family was that my father did just about everything my mother wanted. Still, he would put his foot down when she pushed too hard.

But then Tuck came back to town.

Tuck's father, as I mentioned, went to California. Tuck's dad, initially, found a job with another bank but quickly switched over and became a stockbroker. He did exceptionally well at that and then transitioned over to a bank holding company. He rose through that group and then started his own holding company. He used what he had learned and the contacts he had made to begin acquiring banks in our state. When Tuck came back, he was working for his father. Tuck had been made an Executive Vice President, and he was in charge of the banks his father owned in the southern part of the state. That was nine banks in total.

For the first eighteen months, nothing changed. My mother, however, would point out any time Tuck's picture was in the paper. Tuck, as I would later learn, desperately wanted to reconnect with my mother. Despite that, his father had him working ten hours a day, restructuring the banks they had acquired.

Once the banks were finally settled, Tuck began his seduction of my mother. It was not a long campaign. My father, the trusting soul that he was, didn't object when Tuck asked my mother to co-chair the "Blue and White Ball." I learned later that my mother started sleeping with Tuck after the first week. They continued to sneak around because Tuck was also married. He had a beautiful wife and two children.

My father was very trusting, but only to a point. He finally began to suspect, and even though it must have killed him inside, he hired a private investigator. It didn't take the investigator long to get the evidence.

You would think that there would be blowback against Tuck and my mother, but there wasn't much. Of course, people felt bad for my father, but they didn't stop socializing with Ashley and Tuck. And, as soon as my father shared the evidence with Tuck's wife, she divorced him. I assume that it cost Tuck a lot of money to settle, but I never learned how much because the settlement was sealed by the court. She took the two kids and left the state. As near as I could learn, Tuck had very little to do with his children. He was a selfish bastard.

What I remember most vividly from that blowup was the confrontation my father had with my mother. I can't get the image out of my mind, and I can almost quote the conversation word for word.

My mother had picked us up from school, and when we arrived home, dad was sitting at the dining room table.

My father looked at Tanya and me and said, "Kids, go on upstairs, I need to talk to your mother."

Tanya took one look at our father, and then our mother before racing up to her room. I pretended to go upstairs, but I snuck back down and hid at the bottom of the stairs.

My father tossed some pictures in front of my mother. "How could you do it, Ashley? Does our marriage mean nothing to you?"