Finally Making the Score

CW: Substance abuse, Physical violence or abuse

Wanted high school football coach to lead championship-caliber team.

Jim Pierce, fresh out of rehab from the opiate addiction that nearly ended his life, had sworn he would never again return to the small town. But the ad, that jumped out at the former high school football star from the pages of The Bonn Bugle, presented a challenge he felt he could not ignore. He slammed the door of the fleabag motel where he had spent the last six months of his recovery and decided to return to the scene of some of the best and worst days of his life.

Contrary to the beliefs of many of the tongue-wagging upper class gossips in Bonn, the final chapter of the story of Pierce’s run for the goalline had contained a patchwork of lies.

Sure Barbie-brained former cheerleader Stacy Stonington had turned the tables on Jim’s revenge plot against her and boyfriend Sam Jones, Jr., grabbed the toradol syringe he meant for her and injected Pierce with what she thought was a fatal overdose.

The police never found Jim’s body, and the cheerleader, thanks to flimsy circumstantial evidence and some fancy footwork by the high-priced legal talent hired by Sam Jones, Sr., her wealthy father-in-law, had gotten away with a plea of self-defense.

Because Stacy believed she and Jim had been the only ones present in the darkened pickup the night of the fateful struggle she figured no one would ever learn the true story.

The cheerleader failed to realize that Pierce’s obsession with getting even for his years of finishing in second place to Sam, Jr. on the Bulldog gridiron had not clouded his judgment and intellect.

Tired of playing second fiddle on the football field, Pierce also had seethed with anger when Stacy threw him aside for the pimple-faced rich boy whose construction company owner father had used his influence to win him the glory which Jim felt rightly belonged to him.

The disgruntled second-stringer had gone to the cocktail party at Sam Sr.’s mansion intending to lure Stacy away and add her body to the turf under the midfield stripe at the old athletic complex.

While mapping out his revenge the also-ran had carefully documented his every move in a journal that he kept hidden under the floorboards of his pickup.

Later though, he had decided to reverse course and began transcribing in his journal his hesitation about revenge. Then his emotions took over. He had hesitated while attempting to stab Stacy and she had made him the victim.

The cheerleader had put the pickup in gear and let it roll over a cliff in an abandoned quarry two miles out of the center of Bonn. She took Jim for dead but did not realize that he only lay unconscious in the wrecked truck.

A local banker and hiking enthusiast had found Jim and dropped him off at the Shoreline Medical Center emergency room before driving off anonymously into the night.

After a long and painful series of operations to repair his broken body, Jim had awakened to find all his hospital bills paid in full.

He began weaning himself off of the opiate, rebuilding his scarred body and working out with some members of the Baltimore Ravens who lived in the small town. He also did some part-time coaching for a number of nearby junior high schools.

All the while, though, he felt a void in his life. In the back of his mind there remained a burning ambition to somehow pay back the town that had failed to bring the fulfillment on the varsity football field that felt he so richly deserved in his youth.

After reading the want ad, with a mixed sense of optimism and a great deal of angst, he decided to once again aim for the endzone.

After carefully paging through the Bugel sports pages, he discovered that his beloved Bulldogs desperately needed new leadership after five second place seasons. His alma mater, just like it had during his high school years, could not quite put together the momentum it needed to win the last game and take home the state trophy.

Coach Sam Jones, Jr. said in his resignation statement, “This program has groomed some of the finest players I have seen since my days as the Bulldog quarterback. I believe the potential exists here to take the crown, but, perhaps a fresh approach is needed. In addition, my father’s death has left a void in the leadership of his construction firm that requires my full attention.”

Jones had not included in his resignation statement that his marriage to super model Stacy had broken up after she mysteriously left their newly-constructed home in the nearby suburb of Liston, Md. three years before.

Many in Bonn felt she had gone into hiding to avoid charges of attempted murder that could be issued with the reopening of the probe into the incident at the old athletic complex.

While Pierce welcomed the investigation, he now began to focus on a new career move that could help him gain for the newest crop of Bonn High School grid stars, the fame that had eluded him when the Joneses had forced him to warm the bench when the Bulldogs needed him the most.

He climbed into his new pickup, threw the paper onto the seat and headed for the new Bulldog Athletic Complex.

Principal Larry Jackson couldn’t believe his eyes when Jim knocked on his office door. “This is like a resurrection. My dad, during his 10 years as principal, often said you had gotten a raw deal because the Joneses bought their way into the football program. He was one of the few people in town who suspected there was much more to the Stacy Stonington story than what came out at her trial. I am sure you are what we need to put our football program on the track where it rightly has belonged all these years and finally bring you the justice you deserve.”

Perhaps the game was nearing the last quarter, but no one really knew how it would end, because Jim Pierce had determined that the town that wronged him would not forget him.