Muckers (6 page)

I’m getting hungry, too, only I know what usually happens to me if I eat before a game. Especially meat. Not that there’s much to chow on at our house. So I forget about raiding the kitchen and go right for the banister, dashing up and down the stairs and missing every other one for a pregame
sprint. I usually do a couple hundred push-ups in between the beds right after, but I need to save my shoulder for tonight and it looks like I need a shave.

There’s a crack in the bowl on the washstand between Bobby’s bed and mine, but it can still hold water. It rinsed the blood off my father’s razor and maybe a few fathers before him, too. And the mirror above it from the old country has seen generations of O’Sullivans scrape themselves clean. Including Bobby.

I shared this room with him. Wait, that’s not right. Bobby shared it with
me
. He was six foot two with broad shoulders and a lean waist, forming that all-important V that makes you a great athlete and the kind of fellow girls fawn over, though Bobby only cared about one girl—Faye Miller. Me, I’m five foot seven … with wingtips on. I form the letter
i
, in lowercase only.

I was the kid brother in fourth grade and nowhere near puberty in ’42 when Bobby went to war. Now he’ll miss another birthday. Tomorrow.

I’m still waiting for Bobby to walk through that door, hand me the football, and slap me on the back, chanting, “Red-ee.” But all I have left are the things I’d taken for granted. Like how he threw rockets on the field and just smiled, watching the touchdown, not making a fuss or anything. Then he’d talk about it with his gang after—holding on to Faye on the cushioned seats in the front window at the diner.

Me and Rabbit and Cruz would be walking by, so I’d look back like something had distracted me, giving Bobby just enough time to see me—or at least recognize his old Hatley High sweater I’d practically slept in. He’d knock on the glass with a knuckle for us to come in, then put up three
fingers for Benny behind the counter, signaling chocolate malts for us.

I look at the photos from the Mucker annuals I tacked above my bed. They’re of Mr. Mac’s team and Bobby’s. You can’t miss Bobby smiling and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the front row after handing young Teddy, their mascot, the football to hold.

That’s how it was with Bobby, never wanting it to be about him, but making others feel puffed up and proud. I remember the day that snapshot was taken and going to the field with Bobby right after, tossing the football he’d thrown against Tucson. He showed me the best way to grip the pigskin before you release it: not too tight, but as if you were holding something you’d never want to let go of—like a baby—while still giving it room to breathe. And when I first managed to do it, I felt all puffed up and proud.

Even Pop wasn’t so angry when we came home after and Bobby told him how well I’d thrown. Then he asked to see Pop’s rock collection. Pop told us about every one of those rocks and where he’d found them, before there was an open pit. He held those rocks like they were babies, too, cradling them in his palm like downy chicks so fragile you forgot that they were stone.

I don’t look like much in the mirror. My eyes are bloodshot, and Angie was right: they do look sad. But then they get mad, seeing the letter that’s been clinging to the mirror. I keep it there because it still gets me P.O.’d, and somehow being sore about it helps keep Bobby’s memory alive. I kicked in the bedroom wall the first night I read it, and almost let the notice go up in flames in a bonfire down in the Gulch. But Cruz was there and held out his arm, grabbing my wrist just in time.

It’s not even on official stationery or anything, those cheap army bastards. It looks just like the stuff Mrs. Normand hands out for us to fool around with in typing class. Anybody could have typed it from here. That’s why it’s still so hard to believe:

* * *

5:54
P.M
.

The screen door whams shut and then there’s a thump, like a big juicy cantaloupe’s rolled off the counter and onto the floor. But I’m always thinking about food when it’s supposed to be suppertime. With Maw not here anymore, Pop eats wherever he feels like it: Duvall’s Service Station one night, the diner, even the Copper Star—whatever can get delivered to the doghouse during meal break over at the mine.

He has Maggie Juniper, the widowed squaw living in an old gypsy caravan down in the Gulch, come in once a week to clean the place up a bit, and sometimes she’ll make us food. That’s on Mondays. Now that it’s Friday there’s nothing left to speak of in the way of nourishment.

That’s how come I know it’s Cruz in the kitchen instead of anything to eat, like a ripe-heavy cantaloupe that’s gone rolling. He must’ve dropped his helmet on the floor. Cruz is always stuffing way too much in his gym bag.

“Hey, Ugly. Aren’t you ready yet?” he hollers up the stairs.
Cruz sure is fired up if he’s at my house this early. The game’s not until eight.

“What’d you do, eat up all the food on the shelves and then chomp on the ice, too?” he says. I can hear him in front of the Frigidaire, scratching up Maw’s linoleum floor with his cleats.

“I’m not hungry,” I tell him. Cruz is getting on my nerves already, walking around the kitchen as if he owns it.

“Whaddya mean, you’re not hungry? You eat already? Better not be meat.
¡Ave María Purísima!
You know what happens if you eat meat.”

“I said I’m not hungry.
Comprendes?
” I sprint down the stairs and shove Cruz and his yapper out of the way, swinging the refrigerator door shut. It’s nobody’s business how much food is in there.

He plugs his nose and shifts a pile of my dirty laundry onto the step stool.

“Good thing you’re not hungry.” Cruz starts pulling out a red bandanna from his bag but he doesn’t even have to untie it. I caught a whiff. I know it’s a burrito. Smells all fresh and full of those Mexican spices Mrs. V grinds up with her mortar and pestle.

“
Frijoles
. That’s what you need … beans,” he says, poking the bandanna at me.

“I said … I ain’t hungry.” I try not to lick my lips or swallow or anything. But the scent’s all over the kitchen and my mouth sure is watering.

“I thought you said your pop leaves leftovers every night, no?” Cruz tugs on a cupboard handle. “That your fridge is so full you can’t even close it.”

“Threw all that stuff away on account it was turning sour,” I tell him. Which is true: the one rotted-out tomato covered in fuzz that I scraped off the butter dish.

Once in a while Pop’ll remember to bring me something home, but I can fend for myself. Ernie still keeps me on the payroll two days a week, though there’s not much to do at the garage, and if Mrs. Slubetz has anything left in the cafeteria, she lets anyone take it, so I’ll bring stuff home and mix it up with some hot sauce.

Cruz takes out a plate, wiping off the dust with his elbow. It’s the orange china dish with the little grooved lines around the edges that was Maw’s favorite.

Pop acts like Maw will walk right down from the miners’ hospital and start making us an Ulster fry like nothing ever happened. Like everything’s all right.

“If you don’t eat something fresh, Ugly, you’ll pass out, and I don’t want us losing the game on account of you.” Cruz is acting cocky, as if he’s got the upper hand. Like he’s better off because his mother’s still at home making enchiladas and taking care of ten kids, three of them snot-nosed and barely potty-trained. They run around the Barrio with mud-covered feet, their painted-pony-colored hair flapping in the wind.

“You still have a rusty ol’ icebox, Cruz. What do you know about keeping food fresh?” I tell him.

He cuts the burrito in two with a bottle opener he found in the sink, but it’s not an even half. He slides the plate in my direction, leaving me the bigger piece, before wiping his forehead with the bandanna because of the heat.

“We may not have a big fancy white Frigidaire, but we don’t go hungry, Ugly,” Cruz says. “You tell that shift boss—”

“Just worry about your own performance, amigo. And I don’t need your food,” I say, giving that half burrito a fierce stare like it’s a vulture-pecked rat. The same way Mrs. Hollingworth and those ladies on Company Ridge looked at Maw when she turned.

I remember when they first took Maw up the hill, the Hatley women would leave all sorts of things in our kitchen: buttermilk biscuits, spaghetti-and-meatball casseroles, chocolate cream pies with notes pinned to them. Like we couldn’t take care of ourselves. Like we were a bunch of lowlifes or eejits or something. That’s what Pop used to say. The gifts lasted two, maybe three months.

I pretend like I’m just casually opening the fridge to see if there’s any eggs I might’ve missed. The ones from Mrs. Palermo’s chickens that I scramble up with the half-rotten cabbage heads I find behind Peila’s—if the burros haven’t gotten them first.

There isn’t an egg in sight, just a few pickles in a jar.

I know it’s stupid turning away food when I’m starving, but I don’t want anyone knowing how it is behind these walls and getting all righteous like Sims or judging what they don’t even know.

“You tell that shift boss to stuff this fridge before he does anything else tonight, you hear me, Ugly? I know he eats plenty. I’ve seen him at the Copper Star with—” Cruz shuts his mouth in midsentence when he sees me glaring at him. Not that he’s about to tell me something I don’t already know.

“Hear those Rim Valley players ain’t been anywhere near five thousand feet since last season,” Cruz says. “Hello, nosebleeds.”

I don’t like it when Cruz changes the subject, especially after smarting off at me. And there won’t be any Copper Star for my father tonight. He’d rather work a double shift than watch me play.

“I can’t wait to shred their knees and elbows into Hell’s Corner.”

“Too dry for Hell’s Corner,” I snap back. “And they beat us last year, remember?”

“That’s because the chalk line was wrong.”

“You mean
you
slipped on your ass and never got the ball over in time, so you said the chalk line was wrong.”

Cruz’s mouth is full, but by the look he’s giving, I’m thinking he’ll spit out what’s in it and tear a verbal strip into me. Then he grins. A few pieces of rice and beans fall out, so we both start laughing and he nearly chokes on the rest of the burrito. “Whoever made that call must’ve been born in Phoenix, no?” Cruz mumbles.

“No,” I tell him.
“Cottonville.”

Cruz swallows before laughing this time. “They promised to go heavy on the markings for tonight, so they can’t make us lose.”

It’s just like Cruz not to see that we might get beat tonight fair and square or how small we are. And it’s no use telling him any different. Cruz has never given a horse’s ass about the other teams or what people think. But he’s not the one throwing the ball. I am. And I’ve got to be pretty much perfect this year.

Cruz doesn’t know much about Hell’s Corner anyway. Not the way Bobby did. He’d take me to the field on Sunday afternoons and teach me all about that northeasterly patch of ground. How it’s hiding the rocky elbows of a boulder embedded in the sand and that you need to set your spikes around the edges and dig so you won’t slip. It’s bad enough on dry days, but after a monsoon, Hell’s Corner can suck you deep into the mountain, twisting knees and ending seasons, not caring which team you’re on.

“Rally sons of Hatley High. Sing her glory, sound her fame. Raise her Orange and Black!”
Rabbit walks in singing our fight song, which Notre Dame stole off us, and wearing the token sweater Coach Hansen gave him for being such
a good sport, writing those articles about us in the
Pick & Shovel
.

“How’s traffic out there?” Cruz jokes.

“I’d say you could shoot a cannon from here to the post office and you wouldn’t hit anybody,” Rabbit says.

“They’re all at the field already?” I can’t believe it.

“Last I heard was nearly five hundred,” Rabbit says. “My dad ran out of French loaf already. And Beebe’s not even in her cheerleader outfit yet. She had to ask Angie to help collect the two bits for admission just to keep up.”

“Rah! Rah! For Hatley High!”
Cruz wiggles his hips and whistles, following the curves of some imaginary gal with his hands, but I know it’s Beebe. “We’re not even there yet, Ugly. And already they’re dying to see us.”

Rabbit hands us each a copy of the
Pick & Shovel
.

“You wrote about the game already?” Cruz asks.

“I wrote an
essay
about the game,” Rabbit says.

“Good.” Cruz nods. “Keep writing essays and acting smart so you won’t get drafted when you turn nineteen come December. And don’t grow. They’re not looking for soldiers the size of eighth graders.”