I Woke Up 132 by M.P. Arsent
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His head came up as did almost every one of his teammates did.
"I sir am here to whip your ass Mr Sawyer."
Mercer stood and turned around as serious as could be and then the biggest smile I had seen in a long time split his face.
"Damn Dennis it's good to see you!"
It turned into a back slapping moment
One of the other guys saw fit to come up behind Mercer.
"You know this turkey Campbell?"
"Very well and this 'turkey' is liable to be our toughest competition tomorrow. He is a former all state all around gold medalist, high school division and a good friend of mine."
A statement which seemed to garner me a bit of respect from the guy more for the medal than for our friendship I am sure.
"Eat up and if you have the time after you see the venue maybe we can talk."
"Sure thing. Where can I find you?"
I just gave him my cell number.
"Give me a call. I'll find you."
Mercer watched me walk away and when I sat down with Karl he gave a wave. Karl of course waved back.
"Hope you don't mind love but I made arrangements to see Mercer after they look at the venue."
"What happened to crashing early?"
"Oh I still intend to crash early as I'm betting Mercer does too. I just want to catch up a little. You're more than welcome to come along."
"Let's just finish eating and get our walk in. Pretty sure he'll call before we get done with that."
"More than likely. Mercer never was one for hanging around the venue any longer than he had to."
We finished our own suppers and were soon out for our walk. We were heading for our shadow for our good night kiss when my phone rang.
"Hey Mercer, where are you?"
"Out in front of Cochran hall, the one we're sleeping in tonight."
"Be over in just a couple."
Karl and I made out way across the quad and easily found Mercer on the front steps.
"Hey Karl, good to see you guys are still together."
"Hey Mercer. So which one of your turkeys decided the squad needed a urine test?"
"Karl! Jeez not like he had any say in the matter I'm sure."
"Yeah this is the first I've heard of it. What the hell Den?"
"Old news and not mine to run off at the mouth about."
"Well if it's any consolation Karl we all had to do one as well. First time in a long time for that."
"Well at least somebody has a sense of fairplay. So how the hell have you been? I would have thought to have seen you last summer."
"I'm doing great, and as far as last summer, I was doing an internship well away from home. So none of my business, but does this squad know?"
"Yeah they have since before I actually made the squad. I started out as just an extra pair of eyes for the coach. When they had a problem I got asked to be an alternate and just a couple of weeks ago I got elevated to first string."
"Sounds like you had a hell of a lot of hard work."
"I did after being away from it for almost a year after the accident. Oh just so you know and you don't think you're going nuts, Pete Pershing is also on campus. I have no doubt that he will be in the crowd tomorrow."
"Probably going to be a pretty onesided crowd. We don't even usually have a good turn out when we're at home."
"Well that's gotta suck."
"Yeah the football and hoops teams get all of the attention."
We carried on for about an hour about mutual friends and how our school years were going before we parted.
"See you at breakfast Mercer."
"Yeah have a good night you guys."
Karl and I quickly found a new shadow and had our kiss and I headed back across to my dorm.
Soon enough I was in my room and shortly thereafter Pete showed up as well.
"Never guess who is on the opposing squad Pete."
"Oh somebody I know?"
"Yeah Mercer Campbell."
"Really? Don't know when the last time I saw him was. He doing ok?"
"Yeah he's fine. I'm gonna crash now."
"Sleep well and good luck if I don't see you in the morning."
"Hey do me a favor tomorrow. I don't think they're going to have much support tomorrow. If somebody does something good try and get the guys to acknowledge it."
"You want us to cheer the other team?"
"Only if they are outstanding and you don't have to go over the top. Just let them know the effort is appreciated."
"Dennis you are something else, and I'm not sure what that is."
I was soon enough asleep and the next thing I knew the alarm was going off so that I could get down to breakfast with the team. A good hot shower later and I was downstairs.
Soon enough we were all seated and the other team came in from across the quad. Mercers teammates made it a point to leave the space in front of me open and soon enough Mercer was sitting across from me.
"So these guys any good Dennis?"
"These guys are gonna take all state this year, at least coach Matthews thought so."
"Coach Matthews was here?"
"Yeah for just one meet. Our regular coach had a death in the family and we needed somebody pdq. Coach was good enough to stand in for us."
"Well I see morale isn't a problem."
"Never has been."
We bantered back and forth until breakfast was done.
"See you on the floor Mercer."
"Count on it Dennis."
The other guys left to go have their warm up and I went back to my room for the next hour.
I headed over to the Rec center and changed up when it was our turn to warm up.
We all came out on the floor for opening ceremonies and then of all people I was paired up with Mercer. We both knew it wasn't allowed that we speak to each other again until the meet was over.
We started on the pommel horse. Mercers routine was as solid as I could ever remember him doing it. Problem was it was the same routine he had been doing when we were in high school. He hadn't upgraded it any.
When I went and did my current routine and had thrown some more difficult moves into it, well Mercer simply raised his eyebrows at me when I was done.
I didn't know if he was testing me out or what but I did know that if the rest of his routines were the ones he had been using in high school I had him beat hands down.
We moved on to the vault and it was the same thing. My vault was a couple of degrees more difficult than Mercers and I landed both of them solidly. Something was going on here.
When we moved to the parallel bars I raised my eyebrows at him. He knew damn well what I was asking and he looked away from me.
We did our parallel routines and though he did his cleanly once again there wasn't the difficulty I knew he was capable of. I caught his eyes again and made a flipping motion with my hand. I was asking him if he was throwing the competition.
Mercer simply hung his head, which told me enough. I couldn't call the coach over but he could certainly come to me if he had a concern. I started rubbing my calf like it was bothering me.
It was enough for the coach to head in my direction.
"What's wrong Dennis?"
"Coach I don't know why, but I do know that my opponent isn't working up to his abilities. I think somebody is forcing him to throw the competition"
"Dennis......"
"Coach we were on the same team in high school. He's doing the same routines from 2 years ago. How many people do you know who are still doing the same routines after 2 years? I'm telling you something isn't right."
By this time Mercers coach was over talking to him as well. If I was any judge, his coach was none to happy either.
I don't know what made me do it but I scanned the crowd and I spotted one guy who was definately not a student looking rather worried and on his cell phone.
"Coach over your left shoulder. There's an older guy looking kinda ancey and on his cell phone. My guts telling me he has something to do with all of this."
Coach stood up and as nonchalantly as possible looked for the guy. He turned back to me.
"Your gut is spot on Dennis. The guy is involved in betting on these meets. He's been banned from all of the sanctioned national and international meets."
At this point one of the officials came over.
"We need to be moving on unless you want to forfiet."
"What I want is to speak to the judges in closed session."
The official looked at him, at me, and at the other coach and Mercer. He walked over to the main judging table and spoke to the other officials. While he was doing that coach Warren went over to one of the security people and had a word. The security guard nodded and moved off in the general direction of the bleachers the suspicious guy was sitting in. I looked over and saw that Pete and Susan were sitting right behind the guy. Pete was staring right at me as if to ask 'what the hell?"
I shifted my eyes downward to the guy sitting in front of him and then raised my hands like I was putting them on the guys shoulders. Basically motioning for Pete to keep the guy in his seat.
Pete nodded and when the guy went to get up Pete pushed him back into his seat. The guy turned and started to say something and Susan got a look on her face.
She screeched. "Pervert!" and then clocked him with a left hook. By this time the security guard was there and took the guy and escorted him off of the floor.
I looked over and Mercer was hunched over with his head in his hands. As much as I wanted to I couldn't move from where I was. Not unitl I was called to either move to the next station or was summoned before the officials.
Both coaches were at the officials table now and the security guy had the fellow from the bleachers there as well. All of them moved from the table and headed for the coaches office. All any of us could do was sit where we were and wait.
Eventually one of the officials came and got Mercer. He gave me a look as he passed me as if to say he was sorry.