Our high school was proactive in identifying scholarships and grants to help pay for higher education. And Coach Hope must be aware of her alternatives. He was about to have two children going to college at the same time. He’d surely planned for this.
Then I stopped myself. Cassidy was a big girl who I knew for a fact had the smarts to figure this out. Heck, she never seemed to need any money when she was around me. Of all the people I knew, she was the one who would puzzle out on her own how to get her college paid for. I had to stop trying to save everyone before they even asked.
“If it’s simply a football decision, then Oklahoma is where we need to go to school,” I said.
“Do you think that going to Oklahoma would make it easier for you to get to the NFL?” Conner asked.
I took a deep breath.
“In some ways, yes. Defense isn’t something that’s played at a high level in their conference. Look at Hayden’s numbers from last year. They were good enough to put him in the top five for the Heisman voting. The downside is they play a spread offense from the shotgun. The NFL wants quarterbacks that play under center.
“For Wolf, Oklahoma is his best option because of the offense, while I would expect Tim would want to go to USC. In the last ten years, USC has put almost twice as many linebackers into the NFL as Oklahoma has,” I said.
“We need to decide whether the NFL is a realistic goal,” Jared said, being the voice of reason.
From the looks on their faces, neither Tim nor Wolf liked his point. The odds of any one of us making it to the NFL were slim at best. The smart play would be to go to USC and get a better education.
◊◊◊
Our dads made plans to go to a sports bar to watch college basketball. The NCAA tournament started next week, and there were a ton of good conference tournament games on TV. It seemed they were using this trip to have a dad bonding weekend.
Manaia had insisted on renting a car for the rest of us so we wouldn’t have to ride with Hayden if he planned to drink. Hayden met us at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, located in the historic Campus Corner area right across the street from the campus. I loved their tag line:
“What do you recommend?” Wolf asked Hayden.
“The spicy pork taco and fish tempura tacos are good. You have to order them with the habanero butt-burnin’ sauce. It gives it precisely the right amount of heat.”
Cassidy looked over at me and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t buying the story about it being the ‘right amount of heat,’ either. Anything that claimed it would burn my butt was not going in my mouth.
“What about this drunken pig soup?” Tim asked.
“It’s made with borracho beans and the spicy pork. ‘Borracho’ means drunken. They make the beans with Mexican beer. You should try it,” Hayden suggested and then smiled. “Of course, get some of the habanero sauce to give it a little zing.”
“Of course,” I said skeptically.
None of us fell for the butt-burnin’ sauce gambit. I love tacos, so I was happy with the choice of Fuzzy’s for dinner. It was good, but I’d had better tacos. Thankfully, you couldn’t really mess them up.
After we ate, we walked down an alley next to Fuzzy’s to get to Sugers.
“Are we going to be able to get in?” Tim asked.
Hayden stopped us before the door.
“Here’s the deal. You’re my guests, so they’ll give you a pass at the door. Once inside, be respectful to the talent,” Hayden said.
“He means dancers,” Cassidy clarified.
“The owner is a former stripper herself and can be a real ball-buster who doesn’t take any bullshit. She has little tolerance for anyone who makes the mistake of ‘denigrating her property,’” he said with air quotes.
From the way Hayden said it, he apparently had firsthand experience with the owner’s wrath.
I’m not sure what I expected when we walked into the club. Inside the door, there was a wall of pictures of female anatomy in all its glory. The club was dimly lit by different-colored lights.
Over the music, you heard pool balls clink as they crashed into each other and men talking. There was a faint smell of sour beer and the funky scent of old sweat.
On the stage, a young woman danced in sexy lingerie, her barely concealed assets shaking for the world to see. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed.
“This is great!” Wolf chirped, offering another point of view.
Tim and Wolf were staring at the woman as she did a sexy shimmy on stage. When I looked closer, I saw she was older, maybe in her late thirties.
“Hayden!” a scantily clad woman yelled as she came bounding up.
We all got big smiles on our faces when Hayden seemed to be embarrassed that he’d been outed as a regular.
“Mercedes reserved you VIP seating because of your guests,” she continued and then recognized me. “Oh, My God! You’re that actor.”
“Hi. I’m David,” I said as I shook her hand.
Frick! I had a new fan.
“Would it be okay if I got a picture with you?” she asked.
“That would be fine,” I said.
