Chapter 1: Unnecessary Roughness

        “Hey Bleeds, did you hear that somebody saw Mickie in Charchie’s car last night?” taunts Joe Fassanello leaning over the back of the green plastic seat.

 “Fuck that, we’ve got our first game to play,” growls Blaine Reed, the linebacker, fullback, and reluctant team captain of the Bound Brook High School football team. “I’ve got to focus on beating Bernardsville and so should you, asshole. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

 “Yeah, yeah, Bernards schmernards, let’s have some fun for our senior year,” laughs the compact noseguard as he slides back down into the bench seat of the yellow Romano’s school bus heading up interstate 287 into the Watchung Mountains.

         Try as he might to focus before the game, a familiar fury was growing inside Blaine, this time fueled by the suspicion that his girlfriend was cheating on him. Bleeds wasn't just a portmanteau nickname and it certainly wasn’t a nod to the Crusader team colors, red and white. It wasn’t even the red that filled his vision when about to crush a ball carrier, a secret he’d only shared with the blond daughter of borough engineer Mike Voorhees. After games during the previous season, the white half of Blaine’s uniform had been stained with smears of blood from his violent impacts with teenage boys. He was the type of player who football coaches kept a covetous eye out for in preseason contact drills. He was a hitter.

All four of the Reed siblings were prone to fast and furious responses when pushed. Blocky-looking Blaine had led the way as the oldest when the family had moved north from eastern Kentucky in 1960. A bossy Italian kid had called his little sister Kenfucky just once at Codrington Park before being knocked to the ground and punched in the nose. When he became a leading tackler on the football team as a junior in 1966, Blaine grew to be feared throughout Bound Brook, population 10,000 packed into a square-mile central New Jersey borough.

Moon-faced Beatrice was next oldest and saved her sharp wit and tongue to call out injustice, be it in bullying classmates or sneaky siblings. Third was dark-haired and strong-willed Beulah who had an equally strong arm for throwing rocks at invading kids. Skinny little Wiley took up the rear and tagged along whenever he could, propelled by fast feet and the family reputation to hold their ground in the battlefields of Bound Brook’s ethnic neighborhoods.

The Reed children’s proclivity for decisive action was not the product of some back hollow Appalachian inbreeding. It was what they grew up seeing and hearing. Their truck-driving father withdrew even when home with severe headaches after the concussive injuries he'd endured during the Korean war. When berated for not helping by his homebound wife who had never learned to drive up north, his post-traumatic stress kicked in to end the harangue by hand or by curse, sometimes both. Blaine was adept at this particular art of conflict resolution, and every play on the football field presented ample opportunity to apply that art.

                “Ok men, let’s run a halfback trap down their throats to start this game right,” calls Coach Jack Righetti to the huddle of boys about to head onto the field for the first play after the opening kickoff. “Karpy, you take out their noseguard and Bleeds’ll cut back on the linebacker who fills the hole.” 

The quarterback takes the snap of the ball from the center with Karpy to his right at guard and the two running backs directly behind in I formation. Blaine at fullback and the halfback both step to the left so the defensive lineman charge that way also. The runners abruptly cut back to the right as the quarterback ducks behind Bleeds and hands the ball to the halfback. Karpy charges left and slams into the noseguard, blocking him from turning to follow the football. The defense’s left middle linebacker jumps in the opening between the big linemen and right into the reddening vision of one raging Blaine Reed.

 “Eat shit and die, Charchie,” is the last thing the linebacker hears before landing on his back with a crazy fullback holding onto his face mask with both hands and roaring into his face.

The speedy halfback cuts past the downed players and breaks into the clear for a seventy-yard touchdown run on the first play from scrimmage. The only problem is that there's a yellow flag on the ground where Bleeds is standing over the downed linebacker.

"Facemask, unsportsmanlike conduct, and unnecessary roughness!" calls out the line judge while chopping the back of one wrist with arms over his head. "Fifteen yards and loss of down." 

Game 1 Box Score: BB 0-0-1

	1Q	2Q	3Q	4Q	Total
Crusaders (0-0-1)	0	0	0	6	6
Bernardsville (0-0-1)	0	3	3	0	6