Across the Lawn - Section Two - Jerome

After posting the first section of Across the Lawn I realized that for as long as this story has been around, I still hadn't described Simon at all. In later pages, which take place later in life, I describe him, but the context then is that he's physically changed from the way he looks at the beginning--a mystery which I'd not solved with words and lines until now. Of course, and this has always been a writing fault of mine, I could see him in my head so I never realized I needed to describe him.

Also, I think some writers, especially me, are afraid to give details about main characters. It's easy and necessary to describe other characters, but for some reason there's a tendency for vague main character description. Maybe I leave main characters indistinguishable because they are supposed to be the vicarious connection between the reader and the story. Maybe I want the reader to have some say in what my character looks like.

But that's pretty much bullshit. And lazy. One of Dick Terrill's most important lessons is that a writer will achieve a more universal accessibility not by writing in universal terms, but by being as specific and personal as possible. A reader will always react stronger to specifics than to generalities.

Anyway.

So I described him--rather I gave that job to a the most brutally honest judges of attraction, the executioners of hopeful hormones: Female High School Flautists.

Here are the revised paragraphs from the first section:

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Sometimes the girls played cards. He wanted one of them to turn and ask him to play. He knew it would never happen, so he was content to watch the flautists’ ponytails bounce and sway as they gossiped. Simon couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were talking about him. They couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or creeped out. They didn’t think Simon was ugly. They agreed that he could be cute, but his plain looks needed help. He had a build that struggled between athletic and just skinny. His hair needed to be more deliberate and his clothes updated, straightened, etc. His jaw line was strong, so facial hair wouldn’t be necessary, and boring, brown eyes could be livened up with glasses--which would look fine since his nose was an inoffensive shape and size. Those deerskin choppers would certainly have to go. Yes, they decided: With the right help, like from the right girl, he might be cute. They were sure, however, that not one of them was the right girl.

They didn’t know what his personality was like because they had never talked with him. There were rules: Flautists just didn’t talk to drummers. They could tell, though, he wasn’t too much of a dork, but he wasn’t cool either. Somehow, and this really puzzled them, he was friends with Jerome Kilbourne, the star defensemen of the hockey team. That was the only thing about Simon that intrigued the girls. They went on smiling and waging their ponytails for him, deciding any attention was good attention. He wished he was one of their red and white scrunchies.

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This will transition nicely into the next section, titled...

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Jerome

The pep band welcomed the team back to the ice with another once-through of “Hurrah for the Red and White!” The crowd applauded and cheered. Many cheers were directed at Jerome. When the band finished, the flautists held up a sign reading, “♥ Hit one for us, Killer! ♥”

Simon rested the beaters on the drum’s shell. He was anxious for the drop of the puck. He watched his friend skate in slow, tight circles on his blue line. Jerome was supposed to be lined up on the faceoff circle with his other defender, with the offense lined up at center-ice. But Jerome never left his defensive zone. He was the best stay-at-home defenseman the North Shore area had seen for years. All Jerome did was hit people. That’s all he wanted to do.

Even bent over, his stick resting across the tops of his knees, Jerome dwarfed the competition. Six-foot-four and he wouldn’t turn eighteen until summer. Coach said Jerome would grow another inch before he’s done. Visiting teams feared Jerome’s shoulders, which were at their head-level, and his hips, at their chest-level. As the ref prepared to drop the puck, each member of the Trojans' cross-town rival, Duluth East, had one eye on the ref and one on Jerome. Simon swore he could see the Greyhounds shaking in their skates. Jerome looked at Simon, a half-smile on his face. Simon chuckled.

The ref slapped the puck down and the game was on again. The second and third periods played out just like the first period, just like all the other games over the last three years. No one crossed Jerome’s blue line unless hip-checked ass over head and sent sliding across on their backs, groaning, dizzy, and looking forward to the low-impact nature of spring baseball.

The crowd kept tally of Jerome’s hits, shouting the count with each slam of the boards. Coach Kilbourne screamed orders from the bench but only at the offense. He didn’t have to worry about his defense, at least not when Jerome was out there. Coach had been quoted in Duluth News Tribune, prophesying to scouts, “You think scoring is down in the NHL now? Boy, once Jerome gets drafted, the rearguard position will never be the same! Forwards’ll rather take shots from center-ice than cross into his turf.”

The Greyhounds dumped the puck into Jerome’s zone almost every time they got control of it. If an opposing offender decided to carry the puck in, he was crushed, and regretted that last decision. If a forward happened to squeak by Jerome’s blue line unpunished, Jerome would roar, catch up to him in the corner, and crush him twice as hard. The deeper anyone got into Jerome’s zone, the more sorry they were for pressing. Jerome had told Simon that an offender once apologized just before being toppled over the boards of the poor guy’s own bench.

Jerome hit. That’s it. He could score and pass and defend without hitting—but Coach told him to do all these. Jerome didn’t like being told what to do. It didn’t matter that Coach was Jerome’s father. If anything, it intensified Jerome’s defiance. Instead of helping out the offense, between his freshman and junior years, he amassed three whole points (zero goals and three assists). The assists weren’t even his fault. Three times, he just happened to touch the puck right after crushing guys. Then his teammates scored and he was awarded first assist.

By sophomore year, Coach didn’t bother putting Jerome on the ice for power plays because he’d just skate in a slow figure-eights between center-ice and his blue line, waiting like a Great White for prey to enter his reef. While he waited, he’d stare Coach down. Simon sensed something deeper between them than just father-son stubbornness, but he’d never gotten a straight answer from Jerome whenever he asked. Jerome would simply say his father’s just a dick, prick, cocksucker, or an asshole—and sometimes a combination of them all.

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Next section: Kilbournes