Leverage (18 page)

“Get some,” Scott cackles. “Get some.”

“See. If. You. Dis. Re. Spect. Me. Now,” Studblatz huffs. I can't move my arms up to block out the sounds. They're pinned between the wall and the mat. As I'm forced to hear all of it, my nose runs and a sickness enters me like poison gas, burning out my lungs and brain.

“He likes it,” Scott laughs, then directing Tom, “Give me that mop again.”

“Please,” Ronnie whispers, nothing left in him but the breath being pumped out by Studblatz.

“Shut your little faggot mouth!” Scott snaps, grabbing a handful of Ronnie's hair. In his other hand he draws the mop handle closer, forcing it into Ronnie's mouth. The sound of gagging fills my ears.

The door to the storage room slowly pushes open. Kurt Brodsky stands there, his hands slowly forming fists....

M
y phone!

Only a couple of blocks from Patti's house, knowing I'm late, I reach into my jeans' pocket for a time check on my phone except there's no phone. Brand-new and I've already lost it. Stupid! I just bought the thing at the mall three days ago, can only afford it thanks to the “walking around” money Coach keeps passing me and topping off with a bonus for every win I help us notch in our season. Damn! I know exactly where I left it, too. Took it off and set it down a few feet from the mat I'd been handspringing on most of the day. First phone I ever owned. Gone. Saleslady kept pushing the fancy models on me, said how they made me look sophisticated and cutting-edge when what she really meant to say was “not stupid.” Her interest faded pretty quick when I chose the old-school model, the only one I could afford. And then I go and lose it after only three days. Dumb!

I wheel Patti's station wagon into the nearest driveway, throw it in reverse, then gun it back to Oregrove. I'm already late anyway. Patti's not too keen on loaning me her car, only gave it up after I told her Coach scheduled Saturday practice, and if I miss it, he'll dock the pay going into those little white envelopes he has me deliver every week. Not that I even have a license yet, but Patti never asks. It's best to just let her assume things.

When I get back to the school parking lot, one of the three cars I remember in the student lot is gone. Hopefully it's not Bruce's. Then I spot Scott's gold Camaro parked at the far edge of the lot, near the school's auto-mechanics garage. Odd. Thought they were going hunting today. Maybe they decided to get ripped in the weight room instead. Never a bad idea, far as I'm concerned. No time to be curious, though. I drive into the teachers' parking lot and slip into the
Reserved—Vice Principal
space nearest the building door. I hustle back downstairs, through the long basement hallway, into the team lockers and then push through the gymnasium door. The big gym's empty but the lights are still on.

I duck under the metal guide wires that anchor the steel ring stand and then skirt around the island of four-inch mats surrounding the pommel-donkey thingy. At the other end of the gym, near the vault where I'd practiced all those handsprings, the blue mat is gone. So is the phone.

I open my mouth to call out for Bruce or Danny when I hear dampened voices and then ... something ... not . . . good ... something wrong. Something like a scream, but quiet, like a ghost screeching from under his grave. The gymnasium—halogen lights buzzing and no sun, no outside windows, no people—feels cold along my arms all of a sudden. Chalk dust hanging in the air starts scratching the back of my throat. There it is again ... another ... ghoulish wail ... coming from ... behind those big doors. Doors at least fifteen feet high, like closet doors in a giant's house, making me feel small all of a sudden and ... then that sound again ... I ain't imagining it. Ain't crazy. A moan—faint, tortured—coming from behind the giant's closet. My armpits chill, the sweat running down them turning into metal beads. My feet sink into the soft mats with each step. My thighs, fatigued from all those handsprings, grow heavier, yet trudge in the one direction I want to flee. Everything in my body tells me to run, get out, go. I'll ask Danny about the phone on Monday. But my feet dissolve into those swampy mats, stagger me toward those big doors like I'm creeping down into his basement all over again, spying the “secret punishment” that first time . . .

. . . “breathe a word and you'll disappear,” Crud Bucket grunts on top of Lamar. “People applaud when garbage disappears. You hear me? You hear me? Answer with a ‘sir' this time or I'll go longer. Cops'll thank me if you and that bastard vanish. Give me a medal . . .” “Huff, huff, huff, huff
. . .
”

That sound. Coming from ...

“. . . stop ... please ... stop . . .”

. . . behind those ...

The giant doors are cracked open the smallest bit. As I draw closer I no longer hear a ghost's voice. I hear Scott's voice. Then Studblatz's speaking in bursts like he's bench-pressing, ripping out his sets. Blasting his pecs with each rep. “How. You. Like. Me. Now?”

Except he ain't bench-pressing.

No.

He's dealing out Crud Bucket's “secret punishment” on a boy, the special torture that used to be just for Lamar.

None of them notice me push open the door at first. The little gymnast takes all their attention. Barely bigger than Lamar, his naked legs so skinny and pale it hurts just to glimpse as a trickle of blood stains the back of his left thigh. As I enter the storage room, a vacuum sucks out my insides. All I want is to run fast and forever away as my fingers close into a fist.

Studblatz, glancing my direction, noticing me, lifts his big, ugly self from the boy. Scott yanks the mop handle out of the boy's mouth and his eyes bug at being caught until he sees it's only me. Then a smile worms over his face like he understands me, understands what I want. He acts pleased that I've arrived. Ronnie, gagging, collapses backward to his knees while his arms and head slump against the foam block.

“You want a shot, Mr. Wolf?” Scott asks me, as if Ronnie is his to offer. Studblatz zips himself up and turns to watch me, gauging my reaction.

“You going to say som—” Jankowski, off to my left, starts talking but his voice and all sound die in a wall of flame. Gasoline races through my veins, ignites at my scars, and detonates every cell in my body. Unable to scream or breathe, unable to think, I will burn up unless I extinguish the pain. Unless I destroy them.

My fist cocks and finds the side of Jankowski's thick head. My foot bombs Studblatz's gut. My elbow blasts a chunk of Miller's shoulder. They come at me now. Like Crud Bucket did. Fists and feet pummel me. I return fire. I
rock
them. I
inflict
, bruising something, cracking something else. I heave a lifetime of damage and pain at them, teach them they can't do this.
They can't do this!

They swarm me but I am no longer small.

Scott runs out. Studblatz headlocks me and Tom punches my sides until I stop him with a mule kick to his chest. Still collared by Studblatz's headlock, I scoop him up in my arms and ram the both of us forward into the cinder-block wall like I'm driving against a whole defense for just six inches. I back up and drive into the wall again, back up and repeat. And repeat. My head pounds but it's okay, it's just fine. Hurt is good as long as he feels it, too. I can endure a world of hurt. So could Lamar. One thing Crud Bucket taught us real good was how to absorb hurt. I dive the both of us into the cement floor; smashing my forehead and Studblatz at the same time, feeling Studblatz finally release me. I'm getting ready to make him real sorry when something heavy—a foot, maybe—smashes into my head, smashes me good, and things stop.

K
urt Brodsky goes ape shit.

I mean, he
whales
on his captains, his shots thumping their bodies in deep, satisfying bass notes. Scott, his arm half punched off, crumbles into the shadows and roach-scuttles out of the room. Battered by Kurt's hammer blows, Tom and Mike try double-teaming their fullback but still can't break him. Strangling in Mike's headlock, Kurt blasts Jankowski with his foot, then scoops Studblatz up easy as lifting a child. He rams straight into the wall—once, twice, three times—before diving headfirst into the floor, smashing himself and Studblatz into the cement. Kurt is winning the battle until Tom goal-kicks him in the ear. After that, Kurt just lies there, eyes open but still. Studblatz and Jankowski limp off like wounded demons without uttering a single word.

Ronnie yanks up his sweats during the fight and curls into an armadillo ball, never budging. Even after Jankowski and Studblatz abandon Kurt on the floor, Ronnie stays put. He doesn't try to run out or crawl away or nothing. Just stays folded up, rocking a little, his lips moving but no sound coming out. And me? I stay hidden, hugging the edges of the thick mat, my fingers digging into the vinyl-webbed foam, my knees clamping together and my jaw aching from the jackhammer in my head. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. Are those guys really gone? Or are they coming back? Are they bringing reinforcements? Too useless and weak to help anybody, I hug the blue mat tight to my body, ready to stay hidden for a long, long time.

A moan, an awful moan like death itself, rears up from the floor of that cold crypt. Kurt's mouth releases the sound, opening up, giving his soul an exit. His eyes stare up at the ceiling but nothing is behind them. Then he starts to vibrate. His big body twitches, then grows rigid, then arches off the floor. The twitching turns to thrashing. I know from my dad's hospital stories that it's a seizure. Kurt needs help, needs to be restrained so he doesn't hurt himself. That prods me out of the dark corner. Casting an eye on the door, expecting them to come back any second, I squeeze out from between the wall and mat and jump on Kurt's chest, trying to pin down his big arms, making sure they don't lash out at the cement walls or steel-pronged parallel bar stand. It feels like wrestling a crocodile. His eyelids flutter and only white shows underneath them. I am locked in a struggle, making sure his soul stays put. It's the only fight I have even the slightest chance of winning.

Come on, come on, Kurt. Come on
.

I grasp at arms big around as my legs while his belly bucks up, nearly throwing me. I glance over, needing help, but Ronnie's in another world, murmuring to himself. Kurt's chest pogos up and drops. His head conks against the cement floor like a bowling ball. I let go of one arm and reach for a two-inch mat near my feet, yank it over both of us, and slip it under his skull. He broncos one last time, trying to throw me again, but I'm not having it.

“Come
on
,” I beg through gritted teeth.

Slowly Kurt fizzles. He lies still, again, eyes closed. I shift off him and put my ear to his chest, listen for his heart and breathing, and it's all there.

Thank you
.

“Mmmmm . . . nuh-uh . . . no ... Lamar . . . I'm not . . . wait ... ,” is all he says. Then his eyes slowly open—pupils big as marbles—and gaze around and I see that his brain is trying to work again, trying to put the pieces back together. He lifts his head up off the thin mat and winces. He notices Ronnie in a ball six feet away, and he squints while bringing up his right hand to massage his temple.

“Kurt?” I test. His eyes slowly come around to meet mine. “You back? You gonna be okay?”

“I . . . ,” he starts, then stops. I can tell his head is killing him by the way he cradles it, like a fragile crystal ball, between both hands. He steals another glance at Ronnie while balancing his face in his fingertips, then rolls over onto his knees and elbows. “I tried, Lamar,” he whispers to the floor. “I tried . . .” And then he gags, still clutching at his skull, spilling his stomach up onto the cement and part of the two-inch mat. I back up, pretty certain Kurt will live.

That leaves Bruce.

I scramble out of the storage room and race around a gymnasium full of hiding places. Mats drape almost everything : the ring stand, the high bar, the two sets of parallel bars, the tumbling mats, the mini-trampoline, the vault and runway, and the two pommel horses. Nothing catches my attention.

“Bruce!”
I shout, panicking that those guys'll return. What they did to Ronnie means they could do anything.
“Bruce!”
Freaking out, I'm bounding around the gym without direction when I notice the broken seam between the four-foot-thick vaulting mats. One rises higher than the other. I grab the bottom corner of the elevated mat with both hands. Adrenaline shocks my muscles into heaving the car-size chunk up onto its side in a single pull.

Bruce lies underneath, sprawled on his belly, ankles taped together, wrists taped behind his back, wadded-up tube socks stuffed into his mouth. He rolls a quarter way and his eyes are wide open and bloodshot, his nostrils flaring for air. His face glows red where his hair isn't pressed to his sweaty skin. I rip the sock out of his mouth.

He rolls to his butt and sits up with his legs stretched out in front of him. His wrists are wrapped good behind his back, so I go down to his ankles, find a loose strand, and unwind the tape. As soon as his legs are free, Bruce gets his knees under him and stands before I have a chance to help him up.

“Hold on,” I tell him. “Let me undo your wrists.”

Bruce ignores me and instinctively walks toward the storage room. I trail behind, working on his bound wrists, tied together with about a half roll of white athletic tape. Rolls and rolls of it lie all around our gym.