I am home to visit my dad nearly 30 years after graduating
from high school. My sister joins me for a couple days so that we can go
through all of our mother’s clothes. Dad wants us to sort through everything
because , he says, “I don’t know what’s worth giving away, or what you girls
might want for yourselves.” I call one of my old friends, Abby Brooks, a girl I
have kept in close contact with over the years, to see if she’d like to come
over one evening while I’m there after my sister leaves. She does and, while
Dad watches TV out on the glassed-in porch, we sit in the family room talking.
After almost two hours, Abby shifts around uncomfortably on
the couch and says, “OK, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for
almost a year, but I’ve only just gotten up the courage.” Abby then tells me
that a little over a year earlier she received a phone call from CiCi Howard. I
am astonished by this news. Abby goes on to say that CiCi’s minister husband
was on the other phone extension and that CiCi then went on to explain that her
daughter had had a premonitory dream that involved Abby. “The whole thing was
very strange,” said Abby. CiCi then warned Abby that, in the dream, her daughter,
who CiCi gave more credibility to by insisting knew none of these names prior
to having the dream, saw that Abby Brooks was in danger by continuing to be in
contact with Laura Fischer. Me? Had I heard right? Had Abby just told me that CiCi
Howard’s daughter had a dream with our specific names? It seemed highly
improbable and undoubtedly completely made up and I said as much to Abby. I
held my breath for a moment because I really didn’t know how Abby was feeling
about this revelatory dream. Happily, she agreed that it was unlikely. Her only
puzzlement was in trying to figure out why she had received this phone call in
the first place.
I then told her about what I had witnessed the night of our
graduation, something I had kept completely to myself all these years. Abby asked, “Did Mr. Reid ever say anything to you about it? Had he seen you that night?” Abby
knew that I had seen Mr. Reid on numerous occasions over the years. Whenever I
was home visiting, even after my children were born, we would often go to a
Friday night football game over at the high school. Mr. Reid was “The Voice of
the Wildcats.” He had announced the home games since 1964 with his beautiful
baritone voice and commanding knowledge of the game. At halftime, I would go
say hello and we’d hug one another with all the affection of old friends. He
and I had even sung together at Abby’s first wedding where, during the
rehearsal, we giggled and nudged each other like flirtatious school chums.
“No,” I said, “I’m not sure whether he saw me that night or not. I’m pretty
sure it was just CiCi who saw me, and whether she said anything to him at the
time is anyone’s guess. He has never behaved as if he’s embarrassed about any
knowledge I might have.” Abby nodded her head taking it all in, and slowly
grasping the reasons why she received that phone call. “Do you think that phone
call was all about feeling guilty?” she asked. I assured her that this was
precisely what I thought.
Flash forward another two years and I’m looking at my
Facebook news feed one morning while my father sits across from me at our
kitchen island eating his breakfast. I scroll down the page and see that both
Sharon Ford and Robert Garner have recently clicked that they like “Help
Reinstate Marcus Reid as the Voice of the Wildcats.” I look up at Dad and ask,
“Has Mark Reid been fired as the Friday night football game announcer?” Dad
says he hasn’t heard anything and that nothing’s been in the paper. I click the
link to do some more investigating. There are already over 500 fans of this
page. It is Thursday, and the page was created just the day before. I read on
the Wall that they’re hoping to get 1,000 names by Saturday night. As I peruse
the comments, they are all highly supportive of the man. Many are outraged that
he should be “treated in such a fashion after giving his life to the school.” I
find the link to the Galveston Daily News
article and click. Apparently Mark was called into the school to meet with the
principal and the head football coach and athletic director. He was told, “It’s
time for a change,” and that they’d like to do something nice for him as he
steps down. The suggestion is to do some sort of send-off during halftime
at the first home game. Mark refuses “the honor” preferring to just be done if
that’s the way they want it. He is quoted as saying he’s perfectly capable and
eager to continue in the job even though he’s 77 years old, but also says that
he really wasn’t given that choice. I read through more of the posts and
someone has said that they have found out that the school intends to remove his
name from the dedicated building that bears his name on the Galveston High School campus. Could that really be true? And if it is, I am now pretty convinced
that these are not isolated, whim-of-the-moment, the high school principal just
wakes up one morning and decides that “it’s time for change.” Something most
certainly has precipitated the need.
My imagine goes wild, for knowing what I know, how can these
revelations be anything but completely related to what I know? And I am very
probably the only person who is an actual witness to Mr. Reid’s indiscretions.
Ahem, crimes. Regardless of CiCi’s culpability in the matter, the fact remains
that she was his student and maybe even a minor at the time. Even if she wasn’t
a minor, and a case could be made that she was a consenting adult, his place of
power as her teacher disadvantaged her and he took advantage of that. How many
girls were under his power over the years? Mark retired from teaching in 1996 after
almost 30 years. Just a rough calculation brings me to a number somewhere
between 120 and 150 with perhaps just one singled out girl each year. Maybe.
What I think is that the Galveston school board, or perhaps just
the high school principal, has been questioned in some sort of fact gathering
phase of a criminal investigation, of which Mr. Reid could himself be completely ignorant. Speculating further, the school has decided to take the PR
hit up front in the event something more serious comes to light. Only time will
tell, and perhaps nothing will come of it or my wild imaginings. There are
statutes of limitations, after all, for these things. But, I can’t help but
wonder whether the past has caught up to what was the future.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2011
