Courtney sat bored with his elbows on his knees, chin in palms. It was a bad posture technique he learned at his last high school in New Jersey sitting in the three-row bleachers during morning prayer. Though he didn’t care for the Proverbs and bible stories he had heard since he was in kindergarten, occasionally things would liven up when the director of music would play seemingly improv-ed call and response songs on a wooden piano that never received the tuning it deserved. It was fun; it was full of comradery, yet he never felt like that showed school spirit. Now, roughly 1400 miles away in Kansas, he pined for the days when he didn’t have to listen to cheerleaders fumble over cheers they wrote themselves.
Having always been a nerd - but never a dork - Courtney considered himself smarter than the people around him despite his steady A-/B+ at best average. His last school, while being highly dominated by country-renowned HS soccer players and NBA draft hopefuls, never forced sports into any student’s blood stream. Rather they highly encouraged - read: threatened - each young man to join an after school activity. So, Courtney found himself writing and editing the literary magazine only the teachers read, acting in the plays only the parents came to see, and singing in the chorus only judges (and the school during special assemblies) had the privilege to hear. Now he was lucky to enroll in an art class with barely any supplies as an elective.
He looked at the gymnasium scoreboard to see how much time had gone by. “3:27,” it read. Either it was frozen from a previous game or he really still had over a half hour to go. He stood up in an attempt to fake going to the bathroom. “Sit down, new kid.” Courtney couldn’t remember his name, but it definitely came from the JV football running back or tight end desperately waiting for his turn on Varsity he met in homeroom earlier that day. Sitting next to JV was Mr Anderson who pointed Courtney back to his seat. Like everyone else, they wore the school’s colors while he kept a low profile in all black. Suddenly feeling shackled to the top of the sixteen-row bleachers, he sat down wishing he was tall enough to defy the pair by climbing through the window a foot over his head.
Meanwhile on the gym floor, the cheerleaders had formed a human pyramid. He checked to see if any guys were at the base, but the only two seemed like straight reject-jocks. The lack of diversity drove him further from buying into this midwestern excuse for passing time. Like a teen-drama wiccan, Courtney tried to use his mind to force the apex cheergal to take a tumble. When she slipped, he let out an audible gasp, but it was choreographed. She fell neatly into one of the beefy cheerguy’s arms, spun out of his grasp and threw her arms in the air. He wanted to hate her for sticking the landing but this was the closest he would get to theatrics at this school, so he supplied the applause with my more fuel.
“Yaaaaaas, Mine Creek High!” Becca screamed to the stands causing Courtney to gag over the blind appropriation. “Keep that energy going for your team captain - and my boyfriend - Luke Price and the Mine Creek Ringnecks!” Becca and the other cheerleaders quickly cleared the court floor as the lights deemed. Courtney looked above him and the blinds to the window were suddenly drawn close. He could barely see the row of blonde students seated in front of him.
Strobe lights began to flash over the basketball court. A student in the front row immediately had a reaction, but he was rushed out on a stretcher almost as soon as he fell out like this happened every time. Courtney looked back to the center of the court, but the circle was missing. Then, a hitler-youth haircut rose from the floor followed by the body of a 6’4” adonis, his white and gold helmet under his arm as he rotated on a platform until it locked into place, level with the rest of the floor. He placed his helmet before his New Balance’d feet and dared the student body to make more noise by pumping his left arm in the air. “Ring!” “Necks!” “Ring! “Necks!” Courtney felt his color and popped his collar to protect his neck before anyone got any ideas. Almost as if waiting for his cue, the floor to the right and left of Luke began to flip over. On the other side, the rest of the Ringnecks were strapped down in their starting positions. The crowd went wild! The strobe lights sped up. Courtney looked around for a Sue Sylvester-type to see if this is how the budget for the arts was squandered.
The remainder of the pep rally wasn’t nearly as eventful. It was an odd ten minutes of each member of the starting line up throwing words together to express how easily they were gonna beat last year’s 7-6 record. The 18-0 soccer team at Courtney’s old school would never have gotten this much attention, but at Mine Creek these mediocre Ringnecks were gods. The confusion and despise for school spirit hit new highs for Courtney once he was finally released from the gymnasium.
In the parking lot, seniors and juniors sped off in Jeeps while sophomores and freshmen were picked up in their parents’ SUVs, yet they all shared similar bumper stickers: “Mine Creek Athlete on Board, Make Way,” “Make America Great Again!,” “American Pride or Die!” It was all an odd spectacle as Courtney climbed on his bike. Before he could pedal the five miles home, he heard leaves being crunched behind him and turned around to spot a girl with braces begging for his attention.
“Hey, you almost forgot your team schedule!” the girl waved the Ringnecks Home-Away schedule in front of his face.
He put his helmet on and strapped it tight. “Yeah… I’m good.” He rode off onto the non-lit road, hoping he’d make it home before sundown at 4:37.
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