Leverage (15 page)

“You're okay, Ronnie,” Coach Nelson says, putting an arm on his shoulder, pulling him close to his side, making him face the field so fewer people can see his tears. It isn't exactly how we want to advertise for new recruits.

Fisher is staring out at the field with a big smile plastered on his face when Bruce grabs him by the elbow.

“Come on, man. We don't have much time,” Bruce says, tugging on Fisher.

“Where you guys going?” I ask. Fisher, giggling, flashes me the peace sign in response.

Bruce puts his finger up to his lips and says under his breath to me, “Don't go anywhere. The real show's about to start.” Then he and Fisher slip between a seam in the stands and disappear. The hollow space under the stands is an easy way to sneak out to the parking lot without being noticed. Except for Bruce's mysterious caution, I'm assuming they're both cutting class for the rest of the day. With a shrug, I turn back to the field and cup my hands to my mouth to warm them up. The stadium's new sound system distracts me as it announces the starting lineup of the football team in booming volume. I forget about Bruce and Fisher, try to ignore Ronnie, and stop blowing on my hands, deciding to stick them under my armpits instead.

M
r. Brodsky.” Coach pulls me aside before the start of that morning's pep rally. A freak cold snap has rolled in and sharp winds swirl with a nasty chill for this time of year, nipping at earlobes, noses, and fingertips until they're pink. The clouds bunch along like floating mountains and the sun hits my eyes with a clarity that stings. “You've been selected to wear our team's new helmet. The sponsors for our new Jumbotron went out and invested in some fancy helmet. Thing cost a small fortune but it gives the fans a player's-eye view of the game. Also lets 'em hear game sounds from the field brought to them by their favorite potato chip snack.” Coach watches me for a reaction. I don't have one. I just nod.

Coach laughs to himself. “Aw, Kurt, I knew I picked the right boy,” he says, then tugs me closer and lowers his voice. “Look, son, between you and me, I'm not too keen on giving the fans all the sights and sounds from the field, especially since most our players cuss like sailors on shore leave. But we're still paying off that big ol' TV and those potato chip folks are writing us a nice fat check. So you're the safest bet I got. You keep doing what you always do. Hit 'em hard and don't say a word. Or at least don't cuss up a blue streak. Keep your mouth shut and put your hand over the mic anytime Studblatz starts teeing off near you. Think you can handle that?”

I nod to him that I can. Coach smiles at me and grabs my shoulder, then squeezes it.

“You're a fast learner, my boy. You keep it up.” He jogs out to the field for the pep rally festivities while I climb up into the stands. Homecoming royalty on homemade floats wave from the backseats of convertibles chauffeured by white-haired old duffers.

No surprise, I guess, that Scott and Chrissy are homecoming king and queen. It's a snooze-fest except for the troupe of gymnasts backflipping down a whole length of sideline grass like human Slinkies. They're pretty fun to watch; funner than the marching band and way funner than studying Mike Studblatz's connect-the-dots face as he and Charline are chauffeured past the stands. Wish I could do those gymnastic tricks. Wish I could whip off a string of backflips in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. How cool would that be?

Homemade floats dawdle by us. One says HUNT THE BUCKS in big cardboard letters built on the flatbed of a red pickup with a real dear carcass dragging behind from a rope attached to its neck. Another says BLITZ THE BUCKS with the same type of cardboard letters on a blue pickup truck and two girls in football pads standing in the flatbed, throwing candy into the stands. In the cold, the candy hits us like rocks. The aluminum bleachers might as well be blocks of ice, numbing the backs of my thighs and butt.

Finally they get to the good part and the PA system announces the varsity starters for the game. As each name is called, the new Jumbotron spells it out in flashing letters with digital fireworks popping off around the player's jersey number. When my name comes over the loudspeaker and the Jumbotron flashes it big as the side of an office building, the students in the stands around me start whistling and stomping their feet. For me. The pom-pom girls even do a cheer using my last name. It feels like nothing I've ever experienced. It feels good. I walk out onto the field to stand alongside my teammates in front of the marching band. We line up in the center of the field, far enough from the bleachers that I don't feel like I need to hide my face. Scott and Studblatz leave their thrones to join us, Scott still wearing his red velvet cape and gold crown.
I am a part of this,
I tell myself,
a part of their circle
.

Ceremony finished, we head back to our seats. Scott and Mike go back to their royal court and wait for the convertibles to pick them up and take them for a victory lap. The marching band starts up again, playing loud and off-key, while the bass and snare drums chase a beat the horns don't hear. Doesn't sound like an actual song. Sounds pretty crappy, but who cares. I got my name spelled out on a Jumbotron. People clapped and whistled when they called my name.

I'm climbing back up into the stands when students around me point out on the field. I turn around and see two guys on a motocross bike racing over the football field behind the marching band. The bike's speeding for the homecoming court. The driver and passenger both wear rubber masks of ... George Bush? The driver is wearing a backpack. Ten feet from crashing into the homecoming court, the driver does a wicked one-eighty skid that sprays a fan of dirt and grass across the king and queen. Passenger Bush hops off the bike and stuffs his hands in the driver's backpack. Passenger Bush pulls out . . . what looks like ... water balloons and starts pelting Scott and Mike, rapid-firing them, the balloons bursting on Scott's face and Mike's chest. One hits Chrissy on the back as she turns away. The former president gets off three more pitches, hitting Scott and Mike again, before the last balloon sails out onto the grass. It takes Scott and Mike a second to get past the shock but now they're raging—and soaked—and they sprint for their attackers, but it's too late. Both Bushes are back on the motorbike. The rear wheel shreds a thick divot of grass and spits up a shower of dirt as the bike races off the way it came, leaving Scott and Mike wet, dirt-streaked, and grass-stained. The stands are howling again. Studblatz gets down on all fours and I see him punch the turf before grabbing clumps of it and hurling them toward the disappearing motorbike that's leaving an oily purple exhaust in its wake.

“How about an instant replay up on the Jumbotron?” someone shouts.

“First time George Bush got anything right!” someone else yells.

Guys near me start hollering: “Re-Play. Re-Play. RePlay.” By the time the teachers start dismissing us, the whole field rings with the chant.

A
re you crazy?!” I ask the both of them. “What were you guys thinking?”

“What was who thinking?” Fisher asks back, trying hard to appear innocent. Then a smirk creeps across his face and his eyes twinkle like I've seen when he's pulled a stunt before.

“Come on, Fish,” I whisper, glancing from Fisher to Bruce, who's suddenly really interested in his notebook doodles and won't meet my eyes. “If I can figure it out,
they're
gonna figure it out.”

“Figure
what
out, Danny?” Fisher asks, but he starts laughing and puts a fist over his mouth like he's coughing but that only gets him going more. I glance around, seeing who else in the library is watching us. It's study hall for some students, but I'm up here for lunch period, hiding out from football captains on the warpath since the water-balloon drive-by earlier that morning at the homecoming pep rally. Surprise, surprise I find Fisher and Bruce up here as well.

“I've seen your dirt bike before, dumbass,” I say. I know Fisher doesn't care, but I expect Bruce to be more responsible. “Bruce, do you think they're going to just let the whole thing slide?”

Bruce, ignoring my question, keeps doodling until Fisher elbows him. That's when I see Bruce's shoulders start jerking with silent laughter.

“God!” I shake my head. “When they come to kick my ass, I'm snitching you guys out so fast . . .” I start to threaten, but drift off, knowing I won't. “Doofuses!”

“Relax, Danny.” Bruce gets hold of himself. “You didn't do anything. You've got nothing to worry about.”

 

I've got nothing to worry about. I've got nothing to worry about. I've got nothing to worry about.
I repeat Bruce's words in my head during Mr. Klech's class. We're supposed to silently solve all practice equations on pages 63 and 64 of
Algebra for Life
, but I distractedly wedge the eraser end of my pencil into the textbook's binding and imagine the freshly sharpened No. 2 is a cruise missile seeking a target, set to launch.

With our school's rotating schedule, algebra is my last class that day, and when the bell rings, I sit and wait for everyone to leave first. My plan is to give it ten minutes and let the halls clear before heading to my locker and then go down to the team room. I've successfully avoided Miller, Studblatz, and Jankowski all day since the pep rally.

Then Kurt Brodsky squeezes himself down into the empty desk next to mine.

The last of the students files out of the doorway. I close my launching pad and pile
Algebra for Life
on top of my blank work sheet and notebook. Mr. Klech is busy erasing the chalkboard, his back turned to us.

“Yuh-yuh-you and your friends were pretty fuh-fuh-funny today,” Kurt Brodsky stutters at me without any introduction. By “fuh-fuh-funny,” I take him to mean Fisher and Bruce's water-ballooning, and maybe even Ronnie accidentally landing on Studblatz. Since Kurt is neither smiling nor laughing, I also take “fuh-fuh-funny” to mean this giant's been paid in raw beef liver to mutilate all gymnasts and I'm first.

“It wasn't planned,” I snivel, glancing toward the front of the classroom. Mr. Klech is still erasing, whistling now as he rubs away the day, totally oblivious to the murder about to occur in his classroom. Kurt Brodsky will punch me once with that huge fist of his and obliterate me, then walk out of class without Mr. Klech ever noticing. I grab the
Algebra for Life
book and slowly move it against my rib cage like body armor.

“Are fuh-fuh-flips hard to luh-luh-learn?” Kurt asks, leaning toward me as he stutters, like he wants to disguise what we're discussing from Mr. Klech—if Mr. Klech ever bothers turning around.

“The back handsprings? Hmmm. Not really,” I say while my inner voice urges me to keep talking and hold off the attack until Mr. Klech finally notices us. “I mean, you need to know some basics first but then, once you know how, they're pretty simple.”

“You think ... I could luh-luh-luh-learn how? Or do you have to be suh-suh-suh-small? Luh-luh-like you?”

“Being small doesn't matter,” I snap, feeling my lip curl at the lame question. “You have to be strong,” I say. “And limber.” I frown at the big body hunched over the too-tiny desk. “You
might
be able to learn it. I don't know.
Maybe
.” I grip my pencil in case I needed to use it as a wooden stake. “Why do you want to learn it?” I ask.

“I wuh-wuh-want to do one in the end zone. After I suh-suh-score a tuh-tuh-tuh-touchdown.” Kurt thumps a fist against his desktop like an exclamation point. “Muh-muh-maybe you could tuh-tuh-teach me.”

Once I get over my relief, I have to admit that seeing someone as big as Kurt Brodsky scoring a touchdown and spiking the ball, then doing a back handspring—especially wearing all his football gear—would look pretty cool. And if I could teach him that and if others knew I taught him . . .

“Yeah, maybe I could.” I nod. “It
would
be pretty sweet seeing someone big as you toss a handspring in the game.” Kurt dips his chin along with me like we just figured out Mr. Klech's extra-credit question together. “You'll have to come into the gym,” I say. “ ' Cause we'll need the mats, especially with you. And I'll need one of the other guys to help me spot you.”

“I got puh-puh-practice same time you duh-duh-do,” Kurt says, pinching his brows together. While he thinks, he props his chin on a granite fist. He barely fits behind the desk but he's all muscle, not fat. His jeans stretch tight over massive thighs, telling me he has plenty of horsepower to motor his body through a handspring. Not counting Terrence Mathers, the Knights' compact running back, or Deon Sweeney, their speedy wide receiver, Kurt has the best chance of learning a backflip out of all the football goons.

“How about tomorrow?” I ask. “We practice on Saturdays. It's an optional workout. Coach usually leaves early, so it'll just be me, Bruce, and a few of the guys. Me and Bruce can probably get you around safely if we team up.”

“Ruh-really?” he asks, and the serious expression policing his face loosens a little. He turns his head farther toward me as we talk and I see the long scar peeking out from behind his hair.

“Yeah,” I say. “It's worth a shot. We usually practice from ten to one. Come in around twelve thirty. Coach'll be gone by then. He's not supposed to, but he lets us lock up. I'll tell Bruce you're coming. The other guys'll be gone.”

“Okay.”

I glance toward the front of the room to see if Mr. Klech is paying any attention to us yet. Nope. He finishes wiping down the board and starts filling it up with more math crap for Monday's lessons. The nub of his chalk goes
tick
,
tick
,
tick
against the slate like a warning transmission. Warning ...