Rejected Submission

Thank you very much for your submission to BREVITY, the e-journal of conciseliterary nonfiction. I am sorry, however, to say that we will not be ableto use the essay.
Good luck with your writing.
Dinty W. Moore
Editor, BREVITY

Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number, Right?

By Toriano L. Porter

The heated exchange between my fiancé, Latrice, and I was much ado about nothing. Seems she couldn’t understand the reason Coach Moore and the rest of the St. Louis Bulldogs semi-pro football team were all gung ho about our new quarterback prospect, Darryl Jackson.

Jackson was a do everything quarterback at Webster Groves High in Webster Groves, Missouri. Latrice, of Kansas City and still living there, had never heard of him, but I had. Jackson chose to attend the University of Missouri on a full football scholarship. Within days of his first practice at Mizzou, he abruptly left the team and un-enrolled from school. Some serious allegations had surfaced against him and he had to face the music.

“He did what?” Latrice harped when I mentioned Jackson had pleaded guilty of sexual misconduct after leaving Mizzou. “He had sex with an eight year old child? You’ve gotta be kidding me?”

“Yeah,” I deadpanned, “seems he had sex with her off and on for at least five years.”

“How did he know the girl?” she asked, “were they neighbors or something?”

“Naw, nothing like that,” I explained. “The guy was a part of the deseg program we got down herre and he and the lil’ gal’s big brotha was cool like that. They played football together and the dude used to spend the night ova therre all the time. One thing led to another, I guess. I know the shit went on for a minute, but as soon as the dude went away to college, the lil’ gal told her parents about what was going on.”

“Man, that’s crazy,” Latrice scoffed. “If that was my baby, I would want to ring that guy’s neck. He shouldn’t be allowed to play football ever again.”

“See, that’s the point,” I said. “The judge sentenced dude to a hunnard and twenty days in jail and put him on probation for five years. Part of his probation stipulates that he can’t play college football for the five years he on probation and he must either keep a job or be enrolled in school. That’s were we come in. The judge neva said nothin’ ‘bout the dude playing pro or semi-pro ball. We figure if we get him in herre for two years and he leads us to the championship in Orlando, then hell, he may just get a chance to play pro ball somewhere.”

“And you’re cool with having a child molester on your team,” Latrice admonished.

“He ain’t no child molester,” I corrected, “he’s just a young guy who made a mistake. Now, I ain’t saying what he did was right, but hell, when you thirteen and ain’t getting none and you got some lil’ gal who was probably as hot and horny as he was, let’s just say the experimenting went too far.”

“Tory,” she screamed through the phone, “the boy had sex with a eight year old when he was thirteen and it didn’t stop until he was, what, eighteen, nineteen? She wasn’t even in high school when it stopped. That’s a child molester.”

“Well, technically, baby you right,” I acknowledged, “and he does have to register as a sex offender, but does that mean he shouldn’t be allowed to play the game he was born to play.”

“Hell no!” she protested. “Especially, if he is going to get paid.”

“Well, we don’t get paid,” I explained, which I don’t know why because if we had gotten paid Latrice wouldn’t still be asking me about the ring she didn’t have to make our engagement official. “But, if the Arena League comes or the Canadian League comes calling for him, then it’s all good. America is all about second chances, right?”

“I don’t care what you say,” she expounded, “he should never be allowed to play for pay. Never. Make him get a real job and contribute to society.”

“I’m saying, Latrice, the dude already gotta pay the lil’ gal for any medical or psychological bills she gets from here on out, so I’m pretty sure she wants him to make it to the League too.”

“Oh my God,” she pressed on, “how can you say something like that? If that’s how you feel, I may have to re-evaluate this situation. There is no way I can condone you condoning that type of behavior.”

Within seconds, she had hung up and refused to answer my calls the rest of the night.