All American Boys (21 page)

“What the hell's the matter with you two?” Coach barked. He pulled us all apart, and for a split second it seemed like Guzzo and Tooms were going to go at it again, but Coach got each of them by the collars of their shirts. “There's no room for that bullshit here.”

“He jacked me,” Guzzo said. A line of blood dropped from his nose to his shirt.

“It was an accident,” Tooms said.

“No, it wasn't,” Guzzo shot back.

“Enough,” Coach told them, letting go of their shirts. “Take it easy.” He stared at Tooms. “It was an accident, right?”

“Of course.”

“Bullshit,” Guzzo interrupted. “Everyone has it out for me.”

Coach rubbed his jaw. “All right, look. Enough of that.” He looked around at all of us. “You think it's dumb when someone says there's no ‘I' in team, but you stick one in there and you see how dumb that looks.”

Guzzo took a step back, but Coach waved him closer. “Bring it in, boys.” We all hesitated. “I said BRING IT IN!” he yelled.

So we piled in around him, and he stuck his hand in the middle. We followed, like we always did. “I get it. There's a lot of bullshit out there, and it needs to get resolved, but we're not resolving it in here. Not in practice and not on this court. We leave all that bullshit at the door. In here, on this court, we need to win games. That's all we need to do, and we need to work like one team or we're fucked. You hear me? We've got all kinds of people coming to see us. They start coming next week. Next week! You ready for that? The press, the scouts. When is the last time those guys from Duke were here? You hear me?”

A couple guys said yes, but the rest of us merely nodded. Guzzo leaned on my back, but I was looking across the circle at English and Shannon. I
got
what Coach was saying. I wanted to see teammates, but it got me thinking. Maybe right now all I saw were teammates around me, but once we stepped back into the real world, who did I see? Who did
they
see? Coach could keep shouting at us until we all parroted
back what he wanted, but I knew English and Shannon answered because they had to, not because they wanted to. Tooms, too. And that's what I was doing too, because Coach kept telling us to leave everything else at the door, but I was thinking about it the other way around. How did the team stay a team back out the door? How did the team stay a team out in the street?

Guzzo's nose kept bleeding, right through all the yelling, so Coach told me to get him into the locker room and cleaned up. Then Coach blew his whistle, the scrimmage started again with new combinations, and the squeaking of sneakers and the ball on the court followed me into the locker room.

Guzzo jogged ahead of me, not saying a word while he washed his face and grabbed a couple paper towels. He walked around to a bench deeper in the locker room, sat, and held his head back.

I leaned against a nearby locker and crossed my arms. “He didn't hit you on purpose.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Come on.”

“People have it all backward. They do,” Guzzo said. He wiped at his nose and then pinched it closed again. “Look,” he said. “I'm sorry, but my brother did the right thing. He has to make tough calls. I'm sorry they're friends with that guy, but what are you gonna do? I mean, Paul—he was helping the
woman in the store. He didn't do anything wrong. He was doing his job.”

“But that's not how everyone sees it, man.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're right.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?” Guzzo wiped at his nose again and raised his voice. “But what? Whose side are you on here?”

“Come on, you heard Coach,” I said. “No sides.”

“No sides? Asshole, of course there are sides. There are two sides to every situation.” His nose started bleeding again, so I got him another paper towel. He wiped at his nose again. It still bled. I got him another paper towel, but he just held it in his hand. “They could call you for a witness, couldn't they?”

“Maybe,” I said. I was feeling paranoid about this, because ever since my conversation with Jill, I kept thinking that I had to do it. I had to let someone know. And then what, stand in a courtroom and point my finger at Paul? I couldn't even imagine doing that.

“I don't know how it works, though,” I continued. “Anyway, everyone's seen the video. It was taken from a spot closer than I was.”

“But if they called you, what would you say?”

I was silent. Before anybody would call me into some freaking courtroom, I'd have to tell somebody official that I was there.

“Whose side are you on?” Guzzo asked again, and when I didn't answer him, he continued. “Everyone's gotta get their heads out of their asses. We're not a team if Tooms or anybody else is going to clock me every chance he gets.”

“No, man, the problem is assuming he's out to get you. He isn't.”

Guzzo pinched his nose again and tipped his head back. “I don't need a fucking nurse,” he said. “Get out of here. I know whose side you're on. And I'm going to tell my brother how you don't have his back. After all he did for you, man. Fuck you.”

He stood, and I backed away. Even with a bloody nose, Guzzo could drop me in a heartbeat. “It's about doing the right thing,” Guzzo said mockingly. “I hate all this politically correct bullshit. Nobody'd be spray painting
your
name on the sidewalk if Paul had grabbed you coming out of Jerry's.” He punched a locker with the side of his fist. “Half the school's calling my brother a racist. He was just doing his job. People throw that word ‘racist' around all the time now. Pretty soon everyone's going to start calling me a racist if I don't pass Tooms the ball. It's fucked up and you know it.”

“Guzzo,” I said. “You're not the victim. Your brother isn't either.”

The look on his face went fierce, and I was glad as hell that Coach began bringing the rest of the team into the locker
room. He called out to us, and we reluctantly joined him and the rest of the guys around the bench closest to the showers. “One more time—bring it in, boys,” Coach said. “We're all in this together.” He looked at Guzzo, then at Tooms.

“Sorry,” Tooms said to Guzzo through his teeth.

“Galluzzo?” Coach prompted.

“Yeah, yeah,” Guzzo said. “Me too.” Then he pulled the bloody paper towel away from his face and wadded it into a hard ball. “We're good, right?” he said across the circle to Tooms. He smiled, sarcastically.

If the rest of us had melted away and Coach had disappeared, I think Tooms would have leaped across the bench and punched Guzzo straight in the face, for real this time. And I wouldn't have blamed him. But what the hell? Didn't that make me a traitor to my best friend?

“Hey,” I said to Guzzo. “It's over.”

Guzzo glared at me. “Damn straight,” he said.

“That's right!” Coach said. “And we're a team, and we need to take care of each other. You know the rules. We take care of each other on the court and off it. We don't go to parties, and we help make sure no one else on the team goes to them either. No one needs to be stupid. We've got four months to show the world we're number one. No parties, and no protests, you hear me?”

Some of the guys nodded.

“I said, you hear me?”

“Yes,” we yelled automatically.

“Mean it!”

“YES.”

“Again!”

“YES!”

He stuck his hand in and we followed. “Okay. Team on three.
One, two, three
.”

“TEAM!” we all shouted, lying just to get the damn practice finished. Team. Maybe? Like the whole school is a team, the whole city is a team? But we weren't one just because we called ourselves one. We had to mean it to be it, and to be it maybe we had to talk about the tough shit out loud. Otherwise we'd just keep lying to each other all the time. Lying. Paul wasn't the only one.

DEAR CADET BUTLER,

I HAD PLANNED TO COME VISIT YOU, BUT IT WAS COMMUNICATED TO ME THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT ANY VISITORS. AND IN TOUGH TIMES LIKE THESE, I CAN TOTALLY UNDERSTAND YOU WANTING AS MUCH PRIVACY AS POSSIBLE, AND HAVE ENCOURAGED YOUR FELLOW CADETS TO ALSO RESPECT YOUR WISHES. NONETHELESS, I WANTED YOU TO KNOW YOUR COMRADES AND I HAVE YOU IN OUR THOUGHTS AND WISH YOU A SPEEDY RECOVERY AND RETURN TO THE PROGRAM. AND TO ENCOURAGE YOU IN THIS TIME, I'VE ENCLOSED A CARD WITH OUR CREED.

ALL THE BEST,

CHIEF KILLABREW