Over the End Line (3 page)

I lunged at Kyle, shooting my leg between his, my cleat catching his shin. Kyle stood strong, controlling the ball with one foot. But I was relentless. I knocked him off balance; he recovered. I pressed further. For a moment, as the ball moved close to the edge of the square, Kyle seemed frustrated. I relished the thought and moved in for the—

Bang!

I was on the ground looking up. "What was that?" I said, wiping my lip where his elbow had hit me.

"An accident."

"An accident?"

"Yeah."

"Bull."

Kyle stood above me. "You wanna play with the big boys? You gotta get tougher."

"You just don't like me beating you."

"Never happened," he said. "So I wouldn't know."

"Did today."

"Jonny," Kyle said, scooping the ball off the ground with his cleat, then juggling it with his knees to his head, "you're dreamin'."

No, I think I pissed off the mighty Saint-Claire." I stood up and grabbed my shirt. "I did, didn't I?"

I got on my bike. Kyle got on his.

"That was garbage," I said. "And you know it."

***

With the noon sun above us and the black steel trusses of Redemption Bridge ahead, Kyle and I pedaled up Lake Road. My thighs were jellied, my shins bruised, and heat rising from the pavement had me sweating bullets. Kyle pulled a water bottle from his backpack, took a gulp, then swung his bike beside mine and passed the bottle. I took a swig and handed it back.

"What're you smirking about?" he asked. "Thought you were good today, is that it?"

"I was feelin' it."

Kyle shook his head, dismissively.

That pissed me off. "Know what, Kyle? I was goddamn great today. You know it, and I know it." I tilted my face into the sun. "Now, excuse me while I bask in my magnificence."

"Heat's fried your brain."

"Not as bad as I burned your ass in keep-away."

"Think so?"

"Know so."

"How about you do it in front of Pennyweather next week," Kyle said. "Better yet, do it in a game this season. Then we'll talk."

I shot a look at him. "What's your problem?"

"How important is soccer to you?" he asked.

"What're you, my mom?"

"So you like riding the bench?" Kyle pushed.

"Best seat in town," I quipped.

We continued up Lake Road in silence and, for a while, I thought we'd make it all the way home without saying another word. But then Kyle suddenly cut in front of me and slammed on his brakes. I stopped short. He grabbed my handlebars.

"You want more playing time?"

I rolled my eyes. "Gee, ya think?"

"I'm serious. You want more playing time, don't ya?"

"I played last year," I said. "Averaged nine minutes a game. Nine minutes and fifteen seconds, to be exact."

Kyle shook his head. "Was that enough?"

"Maybe."

"Was it?"

"No," I conceded.

"The starting lineup should be your goal," he said. "If not, you're wasting your time."

I looked at him. "You really think I've been draggin' my ass around Christ Church field with you so I can spend the next two and a half months planted on the bench?" I backed my bike up until he let go, then I started up Lake Road again. "I got everything under control."

But the truth was other people had more control over what happened to me than I did. Whether it was some anonymous jerk creating the ladder, or Pennyweather deciding if and when I played. On and off the field, in and out of school, other people controlled so much of what I could or couldn't do. I hated it, but had to live with it.

Kyle was behind me. "Things are gonna be different this year."

"Different?" I said. "How?"

"It's senior year."

"So?"

"Time to live it up. Take advantage of everything. Like sophomore girls. But you know what'll be the coolest?"

"What?"

Kyle caught up to me. "No rules," he said.

"No rules?"

"Yeah."

"What 'no rules'?"

"No
rules.
"

"Kyle, you already don't have rules. You do what you want, when you want, how you want."

His face turned hard. "You think I can do whatever I want?"

"It's not what I think," I said. "It's what I know."

"Jonny, everyone watches me. All the time. Everything I do." It must have looked as though I thought he was full of it, because Kyle went on as if he had to convince me. "Remember our second game against Caldwell last year, on their field? We won, one to nothing. Clinched the conference title."

I remembered. I had played most of the second quarter. I had four touches on the ball, took a shot that went wide of the net, and even made a defensive stop on a Caldwell give-and-go in our zone.

But this wasn't about me; it was about Kyle. He dominated both ends of the field, controlling the midfield play with punishing tackles and initiating a half-dozen offensive attacks that led to scoring chances. Each time he touched the ball, Caldwell players knocked him down or slid into him with their cleats up. A few dozen fouls were called and the referees handed out three yellow cards. Blood streaked Kyle's calves, but he never stopped running, never showed any quit. On Millburn's lone goal, with just six minutes left, Kyle weaved his way through three Caldwell defenders, then set up Tony Gallo with an easy tap-in. Kyle's play that afternoon was, in a word, incredible.

"There was a problem," Kyle said.

"A problem?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"All I got was that assist," he said. "Forget that I owned the midfield. Forget that my assist set up the winning goal and all that Gallo had to do was stand there like a statue and let the ball hit him. Forget that I cleared two Caldwell corner kicks from our goal area."

"You were good," I said.

"Better than good, Jonny," Kyle said. "I was awesome."

I rolled my eyes, even though I knew he was right.

"Know the first thing I heard when we came off the field?" Kyle said.

I didn't.

"Was something wrong with me?" Kyle half laughed. "After all, something
had
to be wrong with Kyle Saint-Claire if he hadn't scored. I even heard someone's dad say it didn't seem as if my head was in the game. The
Item
wrote that I had an 'uncharacteristically quiet game.' Can you believe that? Jonny, I can't do anything I want. I can't do anything at all without people in this town examining every little detail."

"At least they notice."

"I don't want it."

"Attention comes with the territory," I said. "The soccer star gets nearly all of it. Other starters get some. Those of us riding the bench, waiting for Pennyweather to dole out a few minutes of playing time, get nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada."

You gotta change that," Kyle said.

"I wish," I said. "But it's not gonna happen."

"Why not?"

"Not at Millburn. The last day of school next June, the bell rings and I step out. That's when it changes, Kyle. That's the big equalizer. Until then, the way it is, is the way it is."

We weren't far from Redemption Bridge. When we got closer, I stepped off my bike and picked up a quarter-sized rock.

"Is the mighty Saint-Claire ready to tempt Fate?" I said.

Mounted on one of the bridge's railings was a weathered metal plaque. It read:

In June of 1780, valiant residents of what would later be named Short Hills, under the leadership of Gen. Nathanael Greene, helped repel British and Hessian troops in the Battle of Springfield, thus protecting Gen. George Washington's headquarters in Morristown. This battle marked the final British incursion into New Jersey.

Over the decades, the plaque had become a kind of good-luck target. After a big soccer or football victory, Millburn players would drive over the bridge and throw bottles at the plaque, raining down broken glass into the creek below. Every year, on the last day of school, seniors would douse the plaque in paint and brush across epithets such as "Scummit Sucks," a pleasantry for our cross-town rival, Summit. The town's public works department would quickly have the plaque repainted black, but hundreds of dents remained.

I held up the stone for Kyle to see. "Since you hate all the attention, how 'bout this? I hit the plaque and you don't get to be with
any
sophomore girls until soccer season ends. I don't care how much they're begging for you. Got it?"

"Jonny..."

I took aim, reached my arm back, and threw. The stone sailed through the air, began to dip, then hit dead center.

"The plaque has spoken!" I shouted.

Maybe I was still jacked up from the training session, or maybe the flight of the rock gave me the small victory over Kyle that I needed, but I momentarily lost my head. Without thinking, I climbed up on the top railing, putting my hand on one of the truss's diagonal supports. The railing wobbled. For a frightening instant, I was staring down at a rusted metal ladder that led to a repair platform below me, and immense rocks jutting from the withered creek below that. My stomach dropped.
Oh, shit.
I almost fell. Thankfully, I gained my composure and quickly stepped down from the railing.

"Jonny?" Kyle said.

Before I turned to answer him, I heard voices. I looked below. Sitting against the bridge's abutment were Kyle's younger sister, Stephanie, her friend, Trinity, and a girl whom I didn't know. In front of them, five candles burned.

Animated and pretentious, Trinity wore a black lace shirt and pants, black boots, and maroon lipstick, with a Celtic knot around her neck. There was a streak of red in her otherwise jet-black hair. A cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, she held court, spouting more of that self-important garbage that surely wouldn't fly when they got to high school. "We're the lone bastions of individuality in a town of elitists and conformists," she said to the other two girls. "We have to watch out for each other. All the time."

Stephanie raised her eyes. Trinity spun around and shouted, "What're you fuckin' spying on us?"

"You kiss your mom with that mouth?" I said.

Trinity laughed. "Jonny-boy, I'm not the one who has to worry about rumors about kissing my mother."

"Whatever you say,
Beverly.
"

She shot me the finger. "Screw you, Jonny, you know that's not my name!"

I couldn't help but laugh. Choosing the pseudo-religious Trinity as her adopted name was stupid. Claiming that Trinity was a tribute to her Celtic ancestors, when everyone at Millburn knew her parents were major benefactors at Temple B'nai Jeshurun, was ridiculously stupid.

Stephanie yelled up to me, "Hey, tell my brother he's driving us to the Livingston Mall later."

Then the three girls huddled together and started giggling. I stepped away from the railing. I wasn't surprised they were there. Stephanie knew our neighborhood as well as any of us. When we were young and Kyle let her play kick-the-can, she hardly ever got caught because she had figured out the best hiding places. I'd seen her before at North Pond, writing in a journal or reciting from a book. Now, I guess, her spot was the creek beneath Redemption Bridge.

I gestured to Kyle. "You're driving your sister to the mall."

"Jonny, I didn't agree to it."

"Hey, she's your sister. You two work it out."

"No, the bet," he said. "I never agreed to the bet."

I shook my head. "That's weak."

"Jonny, with an arm like yours," Kyle said, sarcastically, "I
knew
you'd hit the plaque."

I reached down to pick up another rock, but then thought better of it. I might miss the plaque and hit one of the girls down below, which, even if it had been Trinity, wouldn't have been worth the headache afterward. So I picked up my bike instead, and Kyle and I pedaled across the bridge.

"How 'bout this?" I said as we continued up Lake Road. "Three tosses from the dock. Longest throw wins, same as always. We'll put this whole sophomore girls thing to rest."

"And when I win?" Kyle said.

"In the unlikely event you win, then they're off-limits to me during the season." But that didn't seem like nearly enough, so I added, "For my
entire
senior year."

Kyle hesitated, then nodded his approval.

"When are we gonna do this?" I asked.

"Tomorrow afternoon. After we're done training," Kyle said. "You got until then to sweat it."

I stood at the squat rack, preparing for another set, when I heard my mom's footsteps coming down the basement stairs. I looked over. She was wearing jewelry and her nicest clothes, and she had obviously been to the beauty salon.

"I'll be out tonight," she said.

She seemed to be expecting a question from me. But I had none.

"Will you come up and say hello?" she said. "That would be the respectful thing to do."

"Ma, you see me working out."

She pursed her lips, but I knew she understood. I had nothing to say to these men. They usually asked me about where I wanted to go to college, or what my major would be, or whether I was a Mets or Yankees fan. I hated the questions. I knew none of her dates cared what my answers were anyway.

"I wrote down the phone number of the restaurant," she said. "It's on the kitchen counter. There are leftovers in the refrigerator. You'll be all right?"

"I've been alone before," I said.

"I just want you to know where we'll be. So, how do I look?"

"Nice."

I waited until I heard the front door close. It was me alone in the basement, me alone in the house. I didn't have to be down here killing myself. I could've been sitting my ass on the sofa. No one would've known either way. I gripped the barbell with both hands and ducked my head underneath, pressing my upper back and shoulders against the steel. In the mirror on the wall, I stared at my reflection. My face was flushed, and sweat darkened the collar and armpits of my shirt—the céleste and white striped jersey of the greatest striker of all time, the player Argentina and the world called el Matador.

Mario Kempes.

Jugador de fútbol.

El número diez.