About a year and a half later, Sean Forrester and I returned to the secret spot behind Mr. Z’s party store – without Wes Helms around the second time. In Wes’s place was Danny McGrath, another old St. Mike’s friend. We had just started our sophomore years. Sean and I were going into our second year at Dearborn Divine Child, while Danny attended University of Detroit Jesuit, an all boys prep school. That inconvenience had contributed to a growing distance between us during our freshman years, but drivers’ licenses changed the game, sophomore year.
Sean and Danny both turned sixteen that September, and Sean’s license, specifically, broadened the horizons of my social life tenfold. His parents bought him a used, silver Dodge Stratus, and he drove me home after football practices and around town, on weekends. Anywhere Sean went, I went. With the windows rolled down, the speakers blasting 50 Cent, Staind, Blink 182, Papa Roach, sometimes we drove just to drive, to feel the wind in our hair.
Sean and I had played together on the freshman football team, and although he and I still bunked together at football camp before sophomore year, Sean was moving on to bigger and better things, athletically. Following in his father’s footsteps, Sean had switched positions from running back to quarterback during the transition to high school. In his freshman campaign, Sean showed enough potential that Mr. Forrester, who had recently taken over as varsity football coach, named him the starting quarterback going into summer camp.
A sophomore starting at quarterback for the varsity team was no small social matter at our high school. In addition to playing with the expectations his father’s legacy demanded of him, Sean was expected to orchestrate a pass-happy offense on a team that fully expected to compete for the state championship that season. Soon, college recruiters came calling. They sent brochures via mail and made appearances at games with their clipboards. At 6’3, Sean had a cannon of a right arm and an ability to scramble that made him a dual threat, but he had a heck of a lot of pressure on his shoulders. If he felt it, though, he never demonstrated as much to me; he remained ever assured — slightly cocky, even — and in that sense maybe he did have a little James Dean in him, or at least a little Randy “Pink” Floyd.
Rapidly ascending towards status of high school god, Sean received invites to all varieties of parties and social gatherings. He knew kids from almost every nearby high school; fun-loving and charismatic, he never clung to a specific clique and everyone wanted to be around him. His sudden celebrity found me riding shotgun in the varsity quarterback’s ride, and I enjoyed the entourage fame. It was through Sean that I got involved with the Catholic Central and U of D guys who partied, and that was the general group we were with before our return trip to Mr. Z’s Party Store and the secret spot behind it.
