Coach by Walt Sautter (most difficult books to read txt) đ
- Author: Walt Sautter
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I didnât go. I figured that me being there would only start more trouble.
I walked by Mallonâs at two-thirty and the line was wrapped around the block. The whole town was in mourning. Purple and black bunting was hung not only at the school but also at the police station and the firehouse. Flags were at half-staff all over town and many of the shop windows bore signs of lament.
âCoach â We will miss youâ
âCoach â We love youâ
âCoach - Youâll be a winner in heaven tooâ
Every storefront pronounced words of sympathy and grief.
The viewing was to be for five days. Many of the same people attended night after night. Coach had no family. He had always referred to his players, past and present, as his family. He had no children and no surviving brothers or sisters, no real family save his wife Annie. She was an only child and was without relatives.
Big Moose stood by Coachâs wife through every afternoon and evening of the five days. At the first viewing he had brought his All American trophy, placed it in Coachâs arms and asked Annie that it be buried with him. She agreed.
Mournerâs came from everywhere. Former players from far and wide crowded the small Highburg Hotel at the center of town. At the mayorâs request, Mallon had agreed to extend the awake for the two extra days at his own expense to accommodate the multitude.
The day of the funeral came. Ten oâclock on Saturday at St. Andrewâs. The procession, led by Highburgâs two police cars with lights flashing, extended two miles to the cemetery at the outskirts of town.
A mob, two hundred strong crowded the grave sight as the casket was brought from the hearse carried by Big Moose, Coach Ryan and four other former players. Coachâs wife followed, attired completed in black, save the white handkerchief she had pressed against her face.
The coffin was positioned and the words of Coach Ryan echoed across the graveyard as his departing tribute to âthe greatest coach the game has ever seenâ.
His despondent uttering was followed by the less eloquent but equally sorrowful intonations of Big Moose. At the eulogiesâ conclusion, a woeful sigh rose from the crowd and Coach was lowered to his final rest.
The next day, Mr. Robertson again appeared at the door of my English class and promptly marched me down the hall to his office. Standing at its entrance were the Chief and Ricky.
âBoys, I want you two to go with the Chiefâ and with that the three of us walked to the waiting police car at the front of the school. When we arrived at the station house, I was seated in a side room and Ricky in the Chiefâs office. The doors were closed and there we each sat alone, in nervous solitude. After a half hour or so, my door opened and the Chief accompanied by Officer James entered.
âDo you know why youâre here, son?â the Chief asked.
âNot really, unless itâs somethinâ to do with the last time you talked to me at schoolâ I stammered back.
âWell, yeah it isâ he answered, âThat and more.â
âYa know we kinda found out that Coach didnât really just up and die.
The county ME says it looks like he was choked.â
âME?â I interjected.
âMedical examiner! Heâs the guy who checks out to see if someone just died or if maybe they were murderedâ Officer James answered.
âMurdered!
Coach was murdered! I donât know nothinâ about that. I just know what I told ya last time. Thatâs all. Nothinâ elseâ I exclaimed frantically.
âWeâre not sayinâ you do, but we still wanna ask ya some questions, just in caseâ said the Chief in a voice as reassuring as he could muster.
âNow let me see if I got all this stuff straight from last time. You and Ricky went to Coachâs house on Mischief Night to soap up his windows just for fun, right?â
âYeahâ I replied.
âYou walked all the way out there, almost two miles, just to soap some windows?â he continued.
I hesitated.
âI donât want to get Flash or anybody else into this but if I were to lie and get caught, well that wonât be too good for me or Rickyâ I thought to myself.
âNo. We got a ride.â
âFrom who?â asked the Chief.
âFlash. Don Wheeler. He rode us out and then dropped us off. He said he didnât want no part of it so he just dropped us offâ I reluctantly explained.
âOkay, then you guys when up to the house and when you were gettingâ ready to do your stuff you looked in the window and saw Coach and Howie like you said. Is that right so far?â
âSure. Thatâs right.â
âThen, after seeinâ what you said you saw, you both ran out to the road and walked on back to town, two miles?â he continued.
âWell, not quite. We got a ride from Moose when we were about half way back.â
âYou mean, Al Marovich?â
âYeah, Mooseâ I replied.
âThen what?â
âWe came back to town and hung around Snookieâs for a while and then Flash came by again and he gave us a ride home and that was it,â I answered.
âLet me ask you a little bit about your friend Ricky. When you and him went to Coachâs that night what was he wearing?â
I paused and tried to think.
âIâm not really sure. Probably just blue jeans and a sweatshirt like usual. Iâm pretty sure it was a hooded sweatshirt cause it was kinda chilly and I remember both of us havinâ the hoods up. Now that I think of it, yeah, that was it.â
âWas he wearinâ a hat?â asked James.
âSure! He always wears his Brownâs hat.â
âWas he wearinâ that night?â
âI donât remember him not wearinâ it but I remember him sayinâ that he lost it right after we got back from Coachâs house. He thought he lost it in Flashâs car and he looked all over for it in the back seat but he couldnât find it. I remember that real good because he got pretty upset when it got lostâ, I replied.
âDid Ricky ever say anything else about that whole thing at Coachâs. Did he ever say anything about talking to Coach or seeinâ him after that?â
âNot to me. No!â
âAlright thatâs about it. Officer James, take him back to school. Again remember son; I donât want you saying anything to anybody about this.
Understand?â
âYes sirâ I replied.
We left the room, passing the slightly opened door of the Chiefâs office and by Minnieâs adjacent desk. I glanced in to see Ricky, hands folded and foot tapping, anxiously awaiting his interrogation.
James drove me back to school.
Chapter 8
It was two days after my trip to the police station. School let out at three oâclock like usual. I left through the side door. I was alone as usual.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps hurriedly approaching behind me.
âHey Beamy, wait a minute.â
I turned to see Tojo running to meet me.
âYeah. What?â I answered, disguising my surprise. Neither he nor anyone else had spoken to me in weeks, ever since the âincidentâ, as I liked to call it, in the locker room with Howie.
Tojo stopped next to me and hesitated. Then we both started to walk.
âHey man, I never wanted to stop hanginâ with you and Ricky but after what happened I just didnât have the guts to hang with you guys. Everybody was sayinâ stuff about ya. You know what I mean?â he began in an apologetic tone.
There was a brief silence and I then replied.
âWell, how come youâre talking to me now?â
âTo tell ya the truth, I kinda believed that shit about Coach. I couldnât say nothinâ because I didnât wanta get myself or anybody else in trouble.â
I stopped and turned to him.
âWhat do you mean âanybody elseâ?â I asked.
Tojo bowed his head a bit and spoke.
âMy brother Halâ he said softly.
âBut you canât tell nobody this, right?â
âI wonât tell nobody,â I answered with conviction.
âPromise?â he replied.
âPromise!â I answered.
âYou know Hal played for Coach about four or five years ago. He was wingback, remember?â
âYeah, I remember.â
âWhen I came home from practice that day, after Ricky and Howie got into it, I told Hal the whole thing. I thought he would get all upset and start sayinâ âno way, Coach not neverâ, but he didnât say shit. He didnât even act surprised or pissed off or nothinâ.
So when I saw that, I asked him how come?
Then he told me about when he was on the team, how he heard one of the guyâs talkinâ with Coach in the office, all alone, one day. He said it sure didnât sound like any football talk. He didnât say exactly what he heard but he said it sure made him wonder about Coachâs maybe beinâ queer.
He never said nothinâ about it cause he sure didnât wanta start no trouble and besides the guy Coach was talkinâ to, would definitely beat the shit outta him if he did.â
âWhat do you mean? Halâs a pretty tough mother. Whoâs gonna beat his ass?â I interrupted.
âI donât really know who he was talkinâ about but evidently he was a lot tougher than Hal, cause Hal didnât want any part of him.
Even right now, five years later, he wonât tell me. No way, I asked him a couple of times who it was and he got pissed off at me. He said if I asked one more time, he was gonna kick my ass, so I shut up.â
We continued to walk.
âSomethinâ else I gotta tell yaâ he began.
âThey got Ricky in jail.â
âIn jail!â I shouted.
âYeah, jail. James, the cop, is my cousin and he told me. He said they got him there and theyâre keepinâ it real quiet. They donât want no townâs people cominâ around and makinâ trouble and all, so theyâre really not sayinâ anything about it out in the open.â
âWhy do they have him locked up?â
âWell, theyâre sayinâ that they think he killed Coach.â
âKilled Coach!â I exclaimed.
âI didnât even know Coach was killed. I thought he just died regular like!â I continued in surprise.
âFrom what my cousin says, the people from the county investigated and they found marks on his neck and blood spots in the back of his eyes and that means somebody choked him to death.â
âHoly shit!â I was stunned.
Again, there was a brief silence.
âSo whatâs Ricky got to do with it?â
âFreddy says they found Rickyâs hat in the car with Coach.â
âFreddy? Whoâs Freddy?â
âHeâs my cousin, Freddy James, the cop, like I told ya.â
âOh!â
âWhy do they think he did it, besides findinâ the hat, I mean?â
âTheyâre not really sure but they kinda think its got somethinâ to do with you guyâs sayinâ that you saw Coach and Howie that nightâ explained Tojo.
âGot what to do with it? How would they think that made Ricky kill Coach?â
âHereâs what Freddy told me theyâre sayinâ.
Theyâre sayinâ that when you and Ricky were at Coachâs that night, he lost his hat so the day Coach died he went back up there to find it and Coach saw him. Then him and Coach got into a fight about the whole thing and Ricky choked him.â
âAnd so why were they in Coachâs car?â I asked.
âThey said probably Coach was gonna give him a ride back to town
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