The Footsteps of Men - Book Three of the Speed of Light Series
Note: This novel has had major revisions. It is not compatible with earlier versions (copyrights prior to 2022) of The Speed of Light 2, Arms of Brothers.
5.0 out of 5 stars “Life is made of millions of little moments and millions of little decisions”
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2024
This is the third book in the Speed of Light series, and I have now read all three that are available at this time. There is a fourth book still in process of completion.
As in Book One and Two, these characters really resonate with me. I have watched them develop from teenagers into men, from sometimes stubborn individuals to a tight cadre of friends. They have battled themselves, each other, their own ideas and the perspectives of peers and parents. The author has the characters grapple with issues that face many teens: suicide, teen pregnancy, drugs, belonging, football, joining the military—all set against the crashing wave of high school graduation as they stand on the cusp of manhood. I like listening in to their conversations and thoughts as they make important life decisions. And just when I think I may have some things figured out, there’s a few twists to the plot I did not see coming, and the excitement builds! A Book Four in the making …
The three books in this series are not stand alone books: they definitely build one upon the other. I would encourage anyone who liked Book One to continue, because the adventures evolve, the characters continue to develop deeply, and the issues they face are dynamic and complex. A must read series!
”Powerful.” “Bittersweet.“ “About choices.”
Destiny is a big word whispered in your ear.
Maybe you’ll hear it. Maybe you won’t.
Randy’s finally gotten his chance, but teammates prove fickle and loyalties run deep. An existence without purpose is dragging Dylan into the depths of despair. While Stewart is finally going balls out, no one seems to care—or they care too much. That must be a target on his back because he’s getting it from all directions. Although now a mere mortal, Brian’s missteps are teaching him the value of wisdom. William has crossed the line with just about everyone and is recklessly taking chances.
Finding your place in the world isn’t easy. Sometimes you fit where you never thought you would. Sometimes the people you count on let you down. The line between right and wrong becomes less certain. Fall finds four friends doing their own thing, going their own way, and leaning on each other one last time before life makes them stand on their own.
About vision, duty, fear, right, and becoming who and what only you can be.
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CHAPTER ONE
Heroes come. Heroes go.
_Coach_
Final score: 42-14 – Marauders.
After obligatory team handshakes and coach congratulations, the Mighty Bulldogs limped off the field whimpering with tails between their legs. My Marauders bounced off running, leaping, and shouting. In all my years of coaching high school football I’ve never seen such joy. Nor have I ever felt such pride in my guys. I haven’t stopped laughing and smiling since the scoreboard counted down to zero. And here’s the interesting thing about that: I don’t laugh and I rarely smile. It’s in the Coach Handbook – section one, rule three: Never express happiness of any kind. This is especially critical when standing on the sideline, in which case you must at all times look as if you are severely constipated.
I’m waiting outside the locker room for Brian to clear a veritable blockade of congratulations coming from students, alumni, and parents who poured out of the stands to greet him. The sheer volume of talk, laughter and shouting coming through the doors behind me is keeping that rule-forbidden smile on my face. I’m not going in there alone, and confidentially, this victory is Brian’s. He deserves to feel this.
Just when Brian is on the home stretch – about twenty yards out – Dylan gloms onto him. I’m keeping score of Dylan’s outpouring of – um – let’s call it love and affection. In less than two minutes the tally is: 3 high-fives, 2 hugs, 5 shoulder jostles, and Dylan is speaking at a volume in competition with the guys in the locker room behind me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Dylan was drunk.
“No, you cannot come in,” Brian is insisting when I walk up to lend an assist.
“But I need to see my boy, congratulate him,” Dylan argues, then notices me. “What’d I tell you, Coach? Randy is the shit, man. Wooeee, my boy brought it tonight!”
Add another high five and hug. Since Dylan doesn’t seem to know his own strength, Brian is starting to look a little rumpled at this point. Brian’s eyes are pleading with me to save him. I place my hand firmly on Dylan’s shoulder. “I’ll be sure to pass on your praise. Brian is correct. You cannot come into the locker room.”
“But…” Dylan begins.
Then this skinny long-haired kid I’ve seen hanging with the guys grabs Dylan’s other shoulder, pulls him around and gets right in his face. “Dude. I have to get up early tomorrow morning for a forensics meet. It’s late and you need to settle your ass down. We’re going or I’m taking your truck and you can walk your happy ass home. You can talk to Randy tomorrow.”
I’m thinking that no one tells Dylan what to do or when to do it when Dylan thinks a moment, nods, hugs Brian one last time, utters goodbyes and allows this stick figure to lead him away. I turn to Brian. “Who the hell is that?”
“That would be Stewart. He and Dylan are housemates.”
“Is that the guy that Dylan…” I push my nose sideways.
“Yep.”
“I’ll be damned.” I watch them head across the parking lot.
“He’s the only person Dylan actually listens to.”
“I’ll be damned.” Then I return my attention to Brian and smack him on the shoulder. “How’s it feel, Coach?”
“It feels great.” Brian laughs as we start walking toward the locker room. “Sounds pretty rowdy in there,” he comments.
“I was afraid to go in alone,” I confess with a laugh, then force myself to be serious for a moment. “Brian, you were so right about Randy. I can’t believe what he did out there tonight.”
“Coach, in all honesty, even I didn’t know he was that good.”
We’re laughing again when one of the locker room doors opens and the full volume inside spills out. Tyler steps through with an expression that removes any hint of happiness from our faces. Ty stops momentarily. Eyes filled with rage, hurt, and betrayal lock on mine. Words are tumbling through my mind when his focus shifts to Brian. After a wordless glare, he glances back at me, then keeps walking. “Tyler, how are you feeling? Good job second half.” I call out after him. Never slowing or turning, he raises one hand above his head, then the center finger.
_Brian_
I turn to Coach with wide eyes and parted lips. Coach has been known to throw a bench or send a cooler of Gatorade into orbit for lesser offenses.
Coach snorts, then shakes his head and exhales. “You know, only one of Tyler’s passes contributed to the final score, but even then, it was Randy who ran it in.”
“I know.”
Coach continues to shake his head as we watch Tyler walk away. “Tyler, Tyler. What am I going to do with you?”
I bite my lip, then attempt to reignite our enthusiasm. “But hey, what about Austin tonight?”
Coach watches Tyler a moment longer, then turns to me with a gradually brightening outlook. “Yeah, what got into him? I’ve never seen him so amped up. Two touchdowns – the fifth and sixth of his entire high school career.”
“He was on fire.”
“That he was.”
We look at the locker room doors with dread.
“Are you ready for your first postgame talk with the team?”
I look at Coach, thinking I couldn’t possibly have understood him correctly.
“This is your victory, Brian.”
“I don’t know that I’ll know what to…”
“You’ll be fine.” Coach places one hand on my back and reaches for the door handle with his other.
CHAPTER TWO
Bump Bump
If you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
Pompei – Bastille
_Brian_
Not only did I have to pedal home in the dark last night because someone decided to go celebrate with the team on the Overlook and forgot all about giving his beloved coach a ride, but this morning I’ve been looking out the window for Randy as the clock has ticked ever closer to my drop-dead time for departure. Of course that departure time is based on the time it takes to get to Woodland’s Lumber in a motorized conveyance, not riding a bicycle. Has Randy picked up any of my calls or answered my texts? He has not.
“Shit.” I turn away from the window and head for the kitchen. Mom is cleaning up breakfast when I appear in the doorway and she looks up – a bit taken aback by the annoyed expression on my face. “Can I borrow your car today? Randy isn’t here and I need to get going.”
“Oh sweetie, I wish you could. I have appointments today, otherwise…”
I wave her away. “Thanks anyway,” I say over my shoulder and head for the front door. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.” I grab the lunchbox Mom packed for me off the credenza and plow outside.
Since I’d conveniently left my bike on the front porch last night, I only have to bungee my lunchbox to its rack and throw my leg over the bar. I bounce off a couple concrete steps, onto the drive, and start pedaling like mad. My butt won’t be touching the seat the entire way. I’m down the driveway and have turned onto the street when guess who comes squalling around the corner in his rusty old F-150?
Does he pull over, stop, and pick me up?
No. He does not.
My still half-asleep friend apparently didn’t see me waving or hear me yelling so he roared past and proceeded to turn in my driveway. Stopped and straddling my bike, I watch him pull all the way up to the front door of my house in disbelief. I have half a mind to continue on to Woodland’s under my own steam and let him be later than he already is by trying to figure out why I’m not waiting for him. Then he starts honking. The neighbors don’t like honking at seven a.m. Even if I was to start pedaling to Woodland’s now, the time/distance equation still works out with him beating me there. The one thing I’m not having is Wayne’s ass chewing focused on me rather than Randy. I pick up my bike, turn it, and pedal back like mad.
_Randy_
My hand is once again on the horn as Dottie pulls open the front door. Then Brian, riding his bike and quite winded, suddenly appears out of nowhere in my passenger door window. Eeew. From the expression on his face as he grabs his lunchbox, chucks his bike, and yanks open my door, I do believe…
“What the fuck, dude?”
…I’m going to be in trouble.
“What did I tell you last night after the game?” He jumps in and slams the door. I’m doing my best to retract my head turtle-style between my shoulders as I give my F-150 the gas. “I told you that you better not be late this morning and you assured me you wouldn’t.”
“Sorry. I…”
“Damn straight you’re sorry. We’re on probation with Wayne as it is. Thanks a lot, Randy.”
Tires squall as I turn from Brian’s circular drive onto the street and floor it. “I thought I hit the snooze but I turned it off instead and I…”
“I knew it. I knew you would do this.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I gingerly raise my head out of my shoulder shell and look over at Brian – who at this moment – is temporarily silent but still looking quite hostile. “Sorry,” I add.
“Fuck me.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry isn’t the half of it. You better slow down or you’re going to get pulled over and then we’ll be so late we might as well just assume we’re fired and go – I don’t know – to Mexico and change our names.”
“Sorry.”
Now Brian is just looking at the visor and shaking his head.
I chance a smile. “But that was one hell of a game last night, huh?”
“Don’t change the subject on me.”
“I was freaking awesome, don’t you think?”
Brian chuckles a little as his eyes shift to me. “I’m not done being mad,” he protests.
“Yeah, I know, fuck you, fuck me, whatever. One hell of a game, right?”
“Yeah, so you might have surprised me a little bit.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is awesome.”
Brian chuckles a little more. “I saw some good teamwork. No one really stood out though.”
I laugh loudly. Then risking both life and limb, I deliver a medium backhand to Brian’s unsuspecting and quite unprepared chest. His grunt is music to my ears. “Say it,” I command.
Brian is flat out laughing when he concedes. “Okay, you were awesome – you know – semi-ish.”
Now I’m laughing with him.
After clocking in at a whopping 8 minutes late, Brian (who apparently still isn’t done bitching) and I fall in at each other’s side as we head for the yard with tinsnips on our tool belts slapping against our legs. “Wayne has a cow when someone is one minute late. The kind of cow he’s going to have this morning is going to be the kind with really pointy horns. I guarantee it.”
“I know.”
“I’m throwing you under the bus, you know that, right?” Brian warns.
“I know. I might have been walking on air last night, but something tells me I’m going to be trudging through shit this morning.”
“More like buried under it,” Brian confirms, then reminds, “Under the bus, dude.”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Fine.”
When we step out of the door, the first thing we see is Wayne loading a customer’s truck with Portland cement that weighs 94 pounds a sack. Wayne doesn’t like loading customers. Wayne doesn’t like things that weigh 94 pounds. Wayne doesn’t like getting dirty and at this moment the front of his shirt and pants are covered in Portland cement dust. Wayne is looking back at us with a raging case of Mad Cow Disease.
So me and Brian run over and bend to grab sacks of Portland to help him but as soon as we touch them he says, “I’m done now.” Then he shoots us a look that makes my breakfast-less stomach drop and churn. While he politely thanks the customer which is of course a woman because her lazy-ass husband didn’t want to have to feel obligated to help a yardman load cement that weighs 94 pounds a sack, me and Brian grimace at each other because this is going to be a phenomenal ass-chewing.
The instant Wayne is done he turns to me and points at the fence. “Trash. Now.”
Fuck me. I hate cleaning trash out of the fence but without a word, I head for the fence.
_Brian_
“Listen, Wayne, I’m so sorry I’m late, I…”
“Office, Hollingsworth. Now,” he commands. “Bernice wants to have a talk with you.”
Bernice? I’m thinking Bernice doesn’t work Saturdays so I say, “Bernice doesn’t work Saturdays.”
“She’s here special to see you. Go.” Then Wayne points the way to the office like I don’t already know where it’s at. Since it’s chilly this morning, the steam coming out of Wayne’s nostrils makes him look scary as hell. Blood drains from my face and my knees get a little weak. When Wayne’s like this, there’s no sense trying to reason with him.
If Bernice is here on a Saturday morning, they’re firing me. Over this? Shit, shit, shit. I should have hopped on my bike the instant Randy didn’t answer my calls. As I walk back toward the building I just came out of two minutes ago, I’m thinking that if Bernice came in special to do this instead of waiting until Monday, they must really, really hate me. I gave up college for this? I wanted to know what the real world was about and now I know. Shit, shit, shit.
When I walk up to her open office door and look in, Bernice looks coincidentally, well, um, like shit. While she’s normally dressed very nicely, this morning her look is yoga-casual with baggy sweats and not one speck of make-up. Yikes. She’s on the phone and apparently ordering something because she’s reading her credit card number to someone while she points at the chair she wants me to land in. “All right, thank you. I’ll be by to pick that up in an hour or so.”
She hangs up.
She puts the credit card in her wallet and the wallet into her purse.
She looks at me.
Shit, shit, shit.
Then she smiles. “I hear you guys had a phenomenal game last night.”
I’m thinking huh? so I say, “Huh?”
“Natalie called me last night and said Randy almost single-handedly beat those Bulldogs.”
“Huh? I mean, yeah. He did good.”
“He did good?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
She looks at me. “Well, we think that was awesome so we’re throwing you guys a little party at lunchtime.”
“Huh?”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Well, yeah. Not really. I thought you were going to fire me.”
“For what?”
“Being late.”
Bernice waves her hand at me. “Wayne said you’d probably be late.”
“But he’s pissed as hell and I thought you were here to fire me.”
She waves her hand at me again. “Oh, you know Wayne’s bluster or at least you should by now. I had to finish a payroll report so I told him about the game and he’s the one that came up with this. He couldn’t be more proud. We’d like to invite your coach and Randy’s folks and anyone on the team you think he’d like to be here so I need some names and numbers from you.”
So now I’m smiling like an idiot but thinking that something she said didn’t quite add up. “How did Natalie know about the game?”
“She was there. She’s gone to all your games. You didn’t know that?”
“No.” I shake my head and decide to inform Bernice about the obvious. “She doesn’t like us and by us, I mean me.”
Bernice laughs. “A big ol’ hunk of eye candy like you? Brian, you and Natalie really need to talk sometime.”
I’m thinking, huh? but this time I don’t say it.
_Stewart_
“What’s in a name?” I ask the smattering of occupants in the darkened auditorium. As any good forensics student knows, I let my pause make the emphasis my opening remark needs. A touch of nerves, my suit, tie and heat from the bright lights on the stage are causing a film of moisture to form on my forehead.
I continue. “Originally, a name was used to identify the essential, innate qualities of the person or thing it represented. While we’ve gotten away from that in modern times, sometimes a name is still indicative of what it represents.” I don’t even need to look at my notes. The paltry audience has no idea where I’m going with this, so every eye is on me as I go in for the kill. “While Right to Life has always been consistent with its agenda and identity, the abortion rights movement has been less so.”
I grip the sides of my podium and speak clearly and frankly to a crowd of mostly young women whose expressions at this moment confirm their hatred of my very guts. I’m not here to be popular. I’m here to make a point. So what if I’m a one-trick pony? I continue boldly because basically, screw ‘em.
“Abortion Rights is an ugly name, so its movement has become not only very clever about disguising murder, but persistent in making up different brands in an attempt to disguise its true agenda.
“Abortion advocates first argued that pregnancy was no more than the growth of tissue. They thought they could disqualify the legitimacy of life if it was concealed by a womb. They sought to define life by the arrival of a soul that most of their atheistic ilk did not actually believe even existed. When they realized this argument was doomed to not only endless unanswerable debate, but failure, they twisted the issue to one of rights.
“Their modified mantra of A Woman’s Right to Choose and Pro Choice seemed arbitrary, which of course, any choice is. It made abortion akin to shopping for clothes or dumping a boyfriend. For instance, I chose to wear a black suit today. The shortsightedness of women whose sexual desires preempted precaution and whose regret justified severed body parts in a bowl was also a losing argument eventually abandoned because of the flippant nature of its selfish motive.
“So now the mantra of Pro Choice has become, Women’s Health. This makes gender equality the issue. It makes anyone against sanctioned murder of the unborn a sexist villain who doesn’t honor women or respect their health. Is pregnancy a lethal illness? Is the glow of motherhood a cursed disease?
“It is not.
“If a woman doesn’t want to bear a child, the time to think about her health is in preventing pregnancy in the first place. Subjecting women to the emotional burden of abortion does not represent a healthy way of living when a genuinely healthy approach is as simple as a pill or a condom or the word, ‘no’. They want to utter the words, Women’s Health and have you believe it is a sacred cow that you cannot and best not challenge if you want to have a political future. Women’s Health is merely another tool fabricated to sanitize the holocaust of the unborn. Women’s Health is just another attempt to remove any trace of personal responsibility from irresponsible personal behavior.
“It’s only a fetus, Pro Choice, and Women’s Health is what abortion always has been, a lie that keeps trying to perfect itself until someone, anyone, will believe that abortion is a virtue and that unborn living babies are merely tissue.
“So maybe in this case, what’s in a name isn’t as important as what’s not in this name.
“The truth.
“Thank you.”
Although I’m pretty sure I nailed it, I’m not hearing applause from anyone but the teachers and those are pretty faint. The advisors tell me that abortion is too divisive of a subject to speak on. Really? I didn’t know that. The murder of my unborn child was a little divisive for me. So I gather up my note cards and head for my seat. If they don’t agree, rebut me, motherfuckers.
The Bitch has a rebuttal, she thinks. Her gig is harping on deadbeat dads that run off to have a good time while their pregnant girlfriend just needs a little support during a difficult time. Why should a girl be forced to bring a life into the world knowing that the father will never provide for it or be there to help raise it? Seriously? Does a seventeen-year-old getting kidnapped by his friends to go on a three day, two-night camping trip rise to that? How come it doesn’t count that I gave Sam’s pregnancy everything I had from the moment we knew?
I honestly didn’t give a shit one way or the other about abortion until Samantha murdered my baby. Now I’m on a crusade. If I’m a one trick pony, who’s to blame for that? I look over at The Bitch, arrange the cards in my hand so that my center finger is the only one showing, aim it her direction and raise it to shoulder level just before I sit.
It may be a petty gesture, but it works for me and by the sneer on her face, I know it worked for her too.
_Randy_
Not only did Brian throw me under the bus, but Wayne’s spent the entire morning running over me. Forward: bump bump – reverse: bump bump – forward: bump bump – reverse – you get the idea. Every shit job he can think of has come my way with unmitigated asshole glee.
Meanwhile, Brian’s been walking around smiling, laughing, singing and occasionally even playing the air guitar that I taught him.
Assholes.
Eight minutes late is not an unforgivable offense. Since I still have my pizza job, I could easily work that gig the two Saturdays a month I work here so I’m thinking of telling Wayne to cram this job up his ass when Brian wanders by with one of his dimple smiles. “How’s it going, bud?”
I look up from my broom, glare at him, raise the finger, then go back to sweeping.
“So, it’s lunchtime in about ten minutes.” Brian is still beaming the same cocky smile that’s been on his face all morning and is really pissing me off.
Since I didn’t have time to pack a lunch or eat breakfast, I’m starving and looking forward to a vending machine lunch. I continue sweeping and don’t even look up.
“Soooo maybe you should go wash up since you’re covered with dust and filth and shit.” I can see Brian’s pearly-white teeth sparkling at me out of the corner of my eye.
That’s when I chuck the broom into the side of the building, storm past him and head for the door. Seriously, no one better get in my way. Normally I would clock out and then wash-up but since Wayne’s given me every filthy, nasty job he can think of, I’m washing-up on company time and making one hell of a mess in the process, because basically, fuck ‘em all.
A little cold water on my face actually cools my temper a bit so as I stand at the sink with water dripping down the front of my shirt, I notice that I’m the only guy in here. Usually at this time of day somebody’s in a stall blasting out The Butt-load of Shit Symphony in Stink Major right before I have to eat.
When I leave my mess behind and step out into the hall, it’s eerily quiet out here too. Huh. Just as well. So I head for the time clock, punch out, and then walk down the crappy little hallway with wage, anti-discrimination, and OHSA posters thumb-tacked all over the walls. Thanks to feeling a little refreshed, the 90/10 chance I’m quitting the next time I see Wayne has already downgraded to 80/20.
When I turn into the break room, there is a whole ton of people crammed in around a monster sub sandwich and a huge cake decorated in my school colors. Cursive letters of frosting say: The Greatest Game Ever Played! Go Randy! Go Marauders!
Everyone starts clapping and cheering. It takes me a second to realize that Coach and Wayne and my folks and my brother and Bethany and Austin and Ferg and all the yard guys and that asshole Brian are all laughing and clapping as hard as they can for me.
Me.
I might have been all right, but then that crusty asshole Wayne had to give me the proudest double thumbs up I’ve ever seen. That’s when I dropped my hard hat, brought my hands up to my face, started to cry and couldn’t stop.
Author’s note:
Book three is the favorite of series previewers. The guys are becoming men. It is a bittersweet transition of leaving behind and stepping forward. One particularly stoic reader who reported never feeling emotion at any book or for any character, admitted crying at one point in this story. That she dried for happy instead of sad made it even better. I won’t tell you what part got to her, but maybe it will get you as well.
I truly felt as if I was along for the ride on this one. The guys bared their souls in ways I never expected them to. So, here’s a little secret about how I write: I go in with a basic concept of who the characters are going to be and a general idea of a plot. Then it all changes and minor characters that weren’t even going to have a name become central to the story and the plot goes completely awry. Each chapter is a surprise as I have no clue what it’s going to be about until I write it. About halfway through the novel I get an idea of what the ending is going to be. I call it intuitive writing. Others call it writing by the seat of my pants. Either way, this last book of the trilogy has been especially meaningful to previewers so maybe I got it right in spite of myself.
Oh, and prepare to be offended. A couple of characters are going to throw down on some of the most divisive issues and sacred cows of modern society. Don’t blame me. Blame them.
I hope you came to love these guys like I did. I also hope you find the story is complete as it comes to its poignant conclusion. Thanks for reading!
As always, please refer to my post on writing an effective review and leave a review!
