Stick (2 page)

T
hree years of waking up at five in the morning, seven days a week, rain or shine, vacation or not, has a tendency to create a habit. I didn't need an alarm anymore. Every day of my life began the same, and I looked forward to it. Roll out of bed, throw on whatever gym clothes I had lying around, and run five miles along the bluff overlooking the Palouse hills. Then it was back home, eat breakfast, head to the gym, hit the weights for an hour, shower, dress, and go to class. After school I'd hit the gym or the field, depending on the time of year, and train more.

It was grueling, but I loved it. I loved working my body, because I could see a difference. I could run faster, lift more, go longer. The more I worked, the better I got. My dad and my coach couldn't take that away from me, and when I ran those miles and worked those weights, the hollow pit in my stomach that I got from thinking about how much I hated football disappeared. Just like when I hit the field at the beginning of a game.

How I could hate something so much and love it at the same time escaped me. Insanity at its best.

After a weekend doing forced manual labor to pay for the ultimate sin of not catching a ball, I caught up with Mike Jackson, otherwise known as my best friend and teammate. Sixth period was over, and he stood with Jeff Lions and Tilly Peterson, both linebackers, laughing, talking, and joking their usual bullshit. I joined them, slapping five. School was out, and we were free. Hundreds of students hustled through the indoor courtyard, streaming down the stairs, milling around and talking before leaving for the day.

Mike and I had met in detention, of all places, back in sixth grade. He'd mouthed off to his teacher, and I'd been busted for flicking a carrot at Naomi Wilson during lunch. We'd discussed our punishments in whispers, each coming to the conclusion that our crimes had been well worth the punishment. I'd scored a direct hit on Naomi's forehead, and Mike just plain liked mouthing off to teachers.

Since then, we'd been glued at the hip. Sixth-grade summer camp, trips to the mall, hanging at the skate park, walking around downtown looking for hot girls. When I'd tried out for the football team in seventh grade, Mike joined me, and even though he didn't know a touchdown from a field goal, he made it. Big for his age, he was pretty agile, and knew how to hit naturally.

“Yo, Stick,” he said, holding his hand out.

I slapped him five. They called me Stick because I had sticky fingers. Good at catching things, which meant everything at this school. “Sorry I missed the party.”

“Dude, I tried to call you like five times. It was awesome.”

I shrugged.

He knew the story without me having to tell it. “The pass? He really grounded you because you missed the pass?”

I nodded.

Jeff laughed and punched my arm. “Check it. Show's about to start.”

“What show?”

He leaned close and pointed across the way. “See Donny Dorko over there?”

I looked, and a kid, a freshman by the looks of him, sat on a bench near the foot of the stairs. Skinny, small, and with blondish hair, he sat with one knee crossed over the other, reading a comic book. He absently bit his fingernail, head down and intent on the magazine. “Yeah, so?”

Tilly, his big face eager, gave me a devious look, then pointed up. Four more guys from the team, one of them Lance Killinger, our infamously egotistical quarterback, stood at the railing of the second floor, looking directly down on the kid. Tilly made eye contact with them, barely nodding. They laughed and gave a thumbs-up. Tilly put two fingers to his lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle. Everybody in the place stopped, the whistle echoing off into nothing. Everybody stared at the huge linebacker.

At the sudden quiet, the kid looked up, his eyes going to Tilly. Then Tilly smiled and pointed a massive arm at the kid. All eyes went from Tilly to the boy, just as the guys upstairs released what they were holding. I watched as four eggs fell, glinting white in the afternoon sun like silent and graceful missiles.

If one thing is true, most athletes are above average when it comes to hand-eye coordination. All four eggs exploded on the kid's head and shoulders, the cracking noise echoing as the slimy yolks cascaded over him. Tilly slapped his hands together, pumping his fist and bellowing through the courtyard. “Ladies and gentlemen, now that is a DIRECT HIT! FUCKING AWESOME!”

Laughter erupted, and I stood there as it continued. Some people, mostly girls, voiced their disgust, but nobody did anything about it. Of course they didn't. This was school. Nobody ever did anything. I looked at the kid, expecting him to do what he
didn't
do.

He didn't do anything. He sat there, unmoving, egg dripping from him, no expression on his face, his eyes on Tilly. Then he looked down to his comic book, slowly turned the page, and resumed reading.

Jeff laughed. “Awesome.”

Tilly was so typical, it was disgusting. I shook my head, hating myself in an instant for being just another person who didn't do anything. Tilly was the joker of the team, but after three years of it, the thin line between fun and just plain mean was blurring. “What did he do to deserve that?”

Tilly crossed his eyes at me. “He was born, dude. That's why. Don't be an idiot.”

“Hey, Till? You're an asshole.”

He laughed, slapping my shoulder just hard enough to let me know who was running the show. “Jesus, Stick, put your angel wings away, huh? Stop being a bitch.”

I looked at him, and suddenly I hated him. I'd never really had much respect for the guy, but now, looking at how much enjoyment he was getting out of what he'd done, I would have loved to see him go head-to-head with a speeding train. I faced him. “I got a question for you, Till. Why do you always do stuff to guys who can't possibly beat the living shit out of you?”

It took a few seconds for him to understand that I'd questioned the basic rule of what being a complete dick was all about.

I nodded when he didn't answer. “You know Darren Sanwick? He was in science with us last year? The guy with five black belts in jiu jitsu? Fights in the cage every month out at the casino? Yeah—him. The guy who could destroy you in less than a minute,” I said, staring at him. He still didn't answer. I went on. “Why don't you pull that crap on him?”

Tilly smiled, but there wasn't a smile in his eyes. Our football team, just like any other team, had a pecking order, and I'd just pecked the wrong way. “It's just a joke. Come on.”

“Not really, Till. It's not. It just shows you're a pussy. And you're mean,” I said, then turned around and walked away. As I did, I glanced at the kid. He stared at us, a completely neutral look still on his face. He had no chin, big dark eyes, and pale skin. Then he slowly closed his comic book, put it neatly in his egg-splattered backpack, got up, and walked out the doors like nothing had happened.

I imagined him walking or taking the bus home, a public example of what happens when you're born to be slowly beaten into nothing more than a warm bag of humiliation. I knew what the kid's life was and what it had always been. One look at him and anybody would know he was the butt of every joke, the target of endless pranks, and I couldn't imagine how he could live with it every day. The eyes on you. The laughter. Always expecting something to happen and knowing you were too weak to do anything about it. A part of me understood why guys like him came to school and put bloody holes in things with high-caliber weapons.

I heard running feet from behind and turned. Mike came up to me. “Hey,” I said.

He glanced back at the guys. “Hey. What's up with you and Tilly?”

I pointed out the doors, where the kid had gone. “You're good with that?”

“What? The kid?” he said, shrugging. “Lighten up.”

I wondered if Mike was changing into something I didn't know, or if I was the one who was changing. “So, you are good with that?”

“I'm not the bad guy here. I didn't have anything to do with it.” He smiled then. “Watching isn't a crime, bro.”

“No, it's not. But I don't think it bothers you, and that bothers me.”

He smirked. “Since when does anything bother you? You're like a little tin soldier doing exactly what he's told. Can't you ever just have some fun?”

I could have fun. But I wanted to walk up to that kid. Make him somehow feel better. But I didn't. Couldn't. I never did. I just shut my mouth and did what was expected. Mike was right. I was the best high school wide receiver the state of Washington had ever seen, and I needed to protect that. “That's not fun to me.”

“Well, you're putting it all on me, and that's not cool.”

I thought of my dad. Of Coach Williams. Of math. “I know you wouldn't do that shit, but when is it all enough? When is it too much?”

He studied me, a question in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Everything. This whole school. The team. Sometimes it seems like it's just all fake. Like a pretend world. Like we're something better than all the dregs. Isn't that what Coach tells us? That we're better than everybody else?”

“Weekend that bad?”

Mike knew about my dad. The real dad. Not the greatest, most cool sports dad to everybody in the outside world. “Let's just say that Coors Light stock isn't going down.”

T
he next day, Coach Williams's massive frame darkened the doorway from his office into the gym. His voice bellowed over the screeching tennis shoes and bouncing balls. “Patterson, in my office. Now.”

I looked up, midshot, the ball frozen in my hands. I watched him disappear into his office, slamming the door shut. Mike pivoted inside, stole the ball, and landed a crazy weird hook shot. Free period was almost over, and I hadn't even broken a sweat. Not until I heard those words.

Mike laughed. “C'mon, Stick, stay on the ball, man.”

Most seniors had a free period, and instead of going to study hall or the library, I shot hoops to get my mind off things. “Crap.”

Mike dribbled the ball around me and landed a perfect layup. “Go, man. He'll have you cleaning his toilet with your tongue if you don't.”

I walked across the gym, knowing Mike was right. I reached the door and knocked.

“Get in here.”

I opened the door. Coach Williams sat behind his desk, hands clasped over his fat belly, Nike visor perched high on his forehead. He'd played three years for the Dolphins back during the Stone Age, coached like an ex–NFL player on crack, and didn't take crap from anybody. He lived and breathed football, and I would have bet a thousand dollars his DNA code was strung together with pigskin. “Hey, Coach.”

He pointed to the chair. The chair could be either a good place or an incredibly bad place, and I had a feeling today it would be the latter. I sat looking at him. He picked up a piece of paper, crumpled it, and threw it at my chest. I flinched as it bounced to the floor. Silence.

Coach Williams, besides being the best yeller I had ever known, could intimidate a person even more with the opposite. Utter, stone-cold, piss-your-pants-because-you-know-something-really-very-bad-is-going-to-happen silence.

I looked at him, and his black eyes swallowed me whole. “I can bring my grade up, Coach. I can.”

His answer was the muscles of his jaw pulsing as he clenched his teeth.

Resigned, I looked down. “Whatever.”

His hand slamming on his desk made me jump as high as the penholder, stapler, coffee mug, and team picture of the Miami Dolphins did. His voice came low and sharp. “Tell me the first rule of football at this school, Brett, and by the way, if you ever say ‘Whatever' to me again, I'll run you till you puke your lungs out.”

Coach had no tolerance for two things. One was weakness; the other was anybody daring to mouth off to him. I'd seen him cut a first-string running back for calling him an asshat. First-string. Off the team. Done.

Coach pointed to the sheet of grades crumpled on the floor. “We're not talking calculus or physics or honors, Patterson. We're talking math. Plain and simple math. Count-on-your-fingers-and-get-an-answer math. So tell me the first rule of football at this school.”

“Grades, sir.”

He continued. “You know what happens when you fail math at this school?”

“Yessir.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why don't you tell me, Mr. Brilliance? Tell me what happens.”

“It means I don't play football.”

He clenched his teeth. “If it were that simple, my life would be a piece of frickin' cake, Patterson. I know you can catch a ball, but why don't you put whatever brain you have to use and tell me what it really means.”

I shrugged.

He shook his big head, took his visor off, and threw it on the desk. “You fail math, you don't play. That's the easy part. The bigger part is that you let down your team, you let down your school, you let down your dad, and you let down the game itself. You've got a chance at a full-ride scholarship
this weekend
with the scout from UCLA visiting, and we've got a chance at another state championship at the end of the season.” He paused, staring at me. “You going to blow your future because you can't count on your fingers?”

“I'm not stupid. Math is just hard for me. I try.”

He blinked, intense and unrelenting. “Is your dad made of money? You got, like, a money tree growing in your backyard? I've known him for twenty-five years, and I've never seen one in your yard. Am I missing something here?”

I met his eyes. “I said I'm not stupid.”

He jabbed a finger at me. The same finger he'd jabbed at me since I was a freshman. “You don't tell me what you think you are or aren't, Patterson. You are exactly what I say you are, and nothing else. People pay over a hundred thousand dollars to get an education at UCLA. And they want to
give
it to you for free, and you can't pass caveman math.
That…
,” he said, hitting his desk again, “is
stupid.
”

“I talked to my teacher. He said I could—”

Coach slammed his hand down loudly for the third time. “You know what, Patterson? I don't care what you have to say, and I don't care what your teacher has to say. As long as you're on my field, you don't fail. You got that? And it also means you play by my rules and my rules only. We've worked the snap into eternity, and you were late on it. So make your decision. Right here, right now, make it. You pull your head out of your ass and get your game on, or you walk.”

I looked at him and he looked at me, and I knew in an instant he could see right into my soul. He could see the truth. I studied his face. “You're afraid, aren't you, Coach? You're afraid that I'm not afraid of you anymore, huh?”

His face hardened. “Don't go down that road, Brett. You don't want to see where it ends.”

Right then I knew what I was to him. I was a pair of hands and a ticket to his glory. That's all that mattered to anybody. Winning, and winning at all costs. This was insane. My dad, the team, Mike, and that football field under the lights flashed through my mind. But it was now. It was here. I was tired of being afraid, and for some reason, the kid with the egg splattered all over him looked up at me and grinned through it all. “Maybe I do want to see where it ends.”

He picked up the phone, threatening me. “You want this? You want me to drag your father in here so we can hash it out? See what he says? Because right now, you're one smart-assed word away from sitting the bench for a game.”

My heart slowed, and a clarity came over me. It was so simple. I'd spent so much time sweating this, but it was really that simple. “You won't bench me.”

His eyes widened for just the slightest moment before his bluster came back.

I saved him a response. “You can't win state without me.”

He smiled, an ugly smear crossing his face. “You think I haven't been leveraged before, son?”

I shrugged, my eyes meeting his. “You can't win without me.”

He took a moment, the little mice in his head turning his wheels. “This game isn't about one person, Brett. It's about working as a team. It's about trust and dedication and hard work. It's about accomplishing a goal.”

I almost laughed. Football was about power and control and fear and intimidation, but more than anything else, it was about winning. And Coach Williams had proved it for years. I'd seen him play injured guys. I'd heard him tell players to target opponents. He'd do anything to win, and he'd use anybody in order to do so. I stood.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“I'm walking down that road.” Then I left.