Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,102
stood in front of them, not knowing what we were supposed to do next.
“That’s Officer Nadler,” the taller officer said, pointing at the stockier cop. “I’m Officer Dickerson.”
“Nads and Dick? Haven’t we dealt with enough of that?” Marie whispered to Lisa, who giggled.
“Not a very ladylike thing to say,” Dickerson said, stepping up to her so his face was inches from hers.
“Who’s responsible for you girls?” Nadler asked, with his hands on his hips.
No one spoke at first. Since I was the captain, I decided I should answer. “Um, we’re responsible for ourselves. We’re a soccer team.”
Why had I said that like it was a Get Out of Jail Free card? Dickerson stared at me like I was a talking bear, then took a step closer. He loomed over me.
“Mind telling me what a girls’ soccer team is doing on a boys’ field? And what this vandalism has to do with playing soccer? If that’s even what you really do?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to think of what to say. Everyone else had gone silent, but it was probably for the best if only one of us was doing the talking. In movies, there was always one guy who did the talking. “We do play soccer,” I said, pointing at our uniforms. “And we were supposed to have a game with the boys’ team here.”
Officer Nadler gave one of those laughs that was more like the noise of someone clearing a booger from one nostril. “You expect us to believe that?”
“It’s true,” Tina said, backing me up. “They forfeited.”
Dickerson shot Tina a dismissive look. “And then they left?”
Did he not know what forfeiting was? I nodded, as my knees trembled. “Yeah, and we’ve been working hard for this game, so I guess we were mad, Officer.”
“So you wrote this trash?” Dickerson asked. He stared at the “St. Skid-Marks” message on the field as if it caused him physical pain.
I wanted to tell him what the boys had done to us first, but we had no proof, except for the tighty-whities draped around the field, but what could cops do with those? Go door to door to ask people if their sons had lost a pair of stained briefs?
“Are you not going to answer me?” Dickerson said. “Are you ashamed of yourselves? Because I sure hope you are.”
I wasn’t ashamed and I still thought the revenge was worth even the hassle from these cops. But I didn’t want to go to jail or anything, either. “If I say yes, can we leave? It’s just chalk.”
“Look, little lady—though calling you a lady is a stretch, writing stuff like that—I’m not letting you girls go home until you tell me who I can call. You’re lucky I’m not charging you all with vandalism.” Dickerson looked like a guy who immediately settled into his easy chair when he got home and made his wife fetch him beers. He was probably looking forward to that chair too much to deal with writing up eleven girls.
“If you give us a name, we can finish up here,” Nadler said.
“Bobby McMann,” I said at last. “You can try the athletic office at Powell Park High.” I hoped he was still there. It was better him than any of our parents.
Officer Dickerson crossed the field to use the pay phone. We watched as he spoke into the receiver, but we couldn’t hear what he was saying. “He’s on his way,” he hollered as he hung up.
When Bobby arrived fifteen minutes later, he shot me a concerned look over Nadler’s head. Then Dickerson led him around the field to read what we’d written there. It felt like it took hours for them to read four giant words.
“I see, Officer, I understand” was all we heard Bobby saying when they finally returned. They were standing to the side of us, and we all pretended to look at our feet as we eavesdropped. Bobby said, loud enough for us to hear, “Look, it’s my fault. They were supposed to play a game against the boys’ team here, and those boys committed a lewd, aggressive act that, if you ask me, should be punished. My team will be appropriately disciplined by me for what they’ve done here, but you should really talk to the St. Mark’s coaches as well. I reached their athletic director, and he seemed disinclined to even entertain the idea one of his teams would do such a thing. But I saw it with my own eyes.”