The Squared Circle (28 page)

“I'm not sure I've ever resolved winning and losing,” she said to him. “Is that something we're supposed to do?”

“You're doing it again, aren't you?” he said wearily.

“Doing what? In sports there has to be a loser for every winner. Does that have anything to do with reality? Maybe that's what's perverse.”

“You
are
doing it again.”

She pulled the hair on the back of his neck. It hurt. “I'm just asking some pertinent questions. You want to be contemplative, so I'm getting on board. We rescued the fresco from the brink of destruction, and who was the loser?”

“That's different,” he said.

“Exactly. It's different because there can be winners without losers. Maybe the resolution to winning and losing is to think of succeeding.”

“We can succeed, but no one has to fail. That's what you're saying.”

“Yes.”

“You say winners without losers. You can have one without the other.” He could see her point but couldn't think of a response. “What do you think of my idea?”

“Which idea?”

“Turning the haymow door into a window. We'd have to take out some of the upper floor.”

“It sounds terrific. Let me know what materials you need.” She pulled his hair again.

“Ow! Would you knock it off?”

She stopped pulling, but she asked him another question. “Guess what I did?”

“I'm afraid to guess; tell me what you did.”

“I made you another appointment.”

Sonny was shaking his head. “No more sportswriters. It was different with Warner, because he's more like an old friend.”

“This is not a sportswriter, this is different.”

“When did you decide to start making appointments for me?”

“About the time I got tired of being your press secretary.”

Turning to look into her eyes, he saw how serious she was. “Okay, who is it this time?”

“It's Barbara Bonds, your old flame. She wants to visit you.”

“Barby Boobs,” said Sonny hypnotically. “My old flame.”

By using his little finger and the heel of his hand in a kind of pincer movement, Sonny was making his right hand functional and stronger. For example, he could easily pick up a cup or glass, or he could use the hand to steady lumber in a building project. It was also true, though, that his left-handed capabilities improved every day; when he needed to rely exclusively on that hand, he discovered ever more possibilities.

He could shift easily through the gears, as he was doing now, without clumsiness, so it posed no logistical problem when she took his right hand and placed it in her lap. Her fingers caressed the fresh but toughening stumps. She seemed in no hurry; her fingers traveled slowly like a blind person reading in Braille, trying to come to terms with a particularly difficult passage.

“Willie Joe thinks I could still be a basketball star,” Sonny said. “Even this way, with one good hand.”

“What do you think?” asked Barbara.

“I think maybe I could be a lot of things,” he answered. “But the only basketball I plan to play will be for fun, at Makanda Square Garden. That's what we call that court we passed back by the railroad tracks.”

They were sailing down the highway. “Sonny, how are you?”

It seemed like an odd question. Didn't she already ask him that back at Sissy's? Besides which, the way she cradled his truncated hand in both of her own, made him feel embarrassed and edgy. “Aren't you Teague's woman now?” he asked her.

She responded by lifting the back of his hand to press it against her cheek. “I told you I was dating Teague, I didn't say I was married to him.”

Sonny wished he was at the point where he could be secure while someone was holding his ruined hand, but he wasn't. He needed to make conversation: “You left the gym that night they retired my number. You were there at first, but then your seat was empty.”

“You saw that?”

“I saw. I was looking for you.”

Barb was working her chin on the fold where an index finger had once been. “I had to leave or I was going to cry,” she said. “I knew what you were trying to say.”

“Lucky for you, you could leave when you felt like it. I felt like I was going to cry, and I didn't even know what I was trying to say.”

“Yes, you did. Tell me how you are now.”

“I'm better.”

“I don't mean just your hand. I've thought about you so much.”

“You've thought about me so much?”

“All the time. Whenever I watched you play on television or read the newspapers. I wondered if you were happy.”

“I think I have to learn what it means to be happy,” he replied. “It doesn't mean being a star; that has more to do with fear.”

Barb made her eyes round. “Sonny, you're so deep now.”

“Don't make me laugh. You know how
deep
I am. It's my cousin Sissy who's the intellectual. A lot of the time, she reminds me of you.”

“How is that?”

“She wants to improve my mind.”

“Oh, how awful.”

Sonny ignored her sarcasm. He took back his hand to steady the wheel, while using his left hand to fetch the gold team medallion from his shirt pocket. He handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “Hold this.” He watched the way the tiny gold links of the chain spilled into her waiting palm like liquid drops.

“What is it, Sonny?”

“It's a team memento. All the players got one. I figure my mother needs it more than I do.”

“You're giving it to her?”

“Might as well.”

Barb turned the medallion over in her hand to inspect it. “It's very nice,” she declared. Then she added, “Will they let her have this in the hospital?”

“No way, she can't have anything with a chain. She'll only be able to have it under supervision.”

“Will she know what it is?”

Sonny shrugged. “Who knows?”

When they reached the street where his old fraternity sat, he downshifted to bring the Mazda to a stop next to the curb. They were sitting in front of the house with the Greek letters.

“Why are we stopping here?” she wanted to know.

“It's just for a minute. I have to drop something off.” He got out of the car.

“Don't be long, Sonny.”

“This is just for a minute,” he repeated.

The tulip tree in the front yard was glorious, and there was a row of red-hot sally in bloom along the foundation, but Sonny was focused on the front door.
Just stay cool
, he cautioned himself.

He found Harris in the house basement, shuffling fraternity records in manila folders. It was clearly end-of-the year housekeeping, no doubt one of the thankless, low-profile duties of a fraternity president. Nothing colorful like leading a lineup, for sure. Pinky was there as well, sipping at a Bud Light.

Sonny handed the pledge pin to Harris while apologizing for not returning it sooner. “To tell you the truth, I didn't know I still had it.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Harris with a smile. “Better late than never.” Sonny watched Harris and Pinky staring at his right hand. He fought the urge to hide it in the pocket of his jeans.

Both fraternity men expressed their regrets about his accident, and asked him how he was doing.

“I'm okay.”

“I hope so,” said Harris. “You know, Sonny, a fraternity is a support system; that's the kind of brotherhood it is.”

Sonny knew he could leave now, if he wanted; he didn't have to listen to this. “Terrific. I hope you get all the brotherhood you can handle.”

Pinky stared at his beer can. Harris paused before he went on. “What I'm trying to say is that brothers in a fraternity form a bond that helps them through the rough times.”

“Wonderful. I'm just bringin' the pin back; I wouldn't want to interrupt your bonding.” In spite of his good intentions, he found himself getting pissed. He doubted if Harris would ever understand what real bonding was all about, the kind of connection he knew with Sissy, where the freedom to be yourself was the spine of a relationship.

For whatever reason, maybe from a level of discomfort, Harris persisted by saying, “I'm just sorry you never
got
that part, the part we call house loyalty.”

“You can go fuck your house loyalty,” Sonny snapped.
Now what am I doing?
“I brought your pin back. You sound like one of the kiss-ass grad assistants who works for the coaching staff. I'll tell you what you don't get, Harris: You think this fraternity makes you important. You're no different than all those sorry-ass boosters who think a basketball team will make them important.”

“What are you, a thinker now, Youngblood?”

It was the question Sonny might have asked himself. “Maybe; stranger things have happened. I'll tell you something else: I could turn this fraternity in. All that hazing shit, that lineup shit, that's all illegal.”

He watched Harris and Pinky to see what sort of response there might be, but neither of them spoke; neither of them looked in his direction, either. He went on, “I could turn your ass in to the office of student life and they'd close this fucking fraternity down.”

“You could try that, I suppose,” said Harris quietly. “It'd be your word against ours. But if all you can see in hazing is abuse, then you still miss the meaning of humility and subordinating oneself to the group.”

“I know more about humility than you'll ever know. Whatever it is I don't get, the university must not get it either. They'd close you down, so then you could go lookin' for a new set of brothers. How would that be? Then what would you do to feel important?”

“It'd be a chickenshit thing to do, Youngblood,” added Pinky. “Somehow I don't see you as a chickenshit.”

“You don't get it either, Pinky,” said Sonny with a laugh. Even though this kind of verbal confrontation was foreign to him, he somehow felt comfortable, being pissed but in control at the same time.
Will I be different now, and will this be part of the difference?
he asked himself before continuing, “As far as that goes, what
do
you get, other than drunked up every chance you get? It's got nothin' to do with chickenshit. If I don't turn your sorry ass in, it'll be because you're not worth it.”

“Fuck you, Youngblood,” said Pinky.

“Maybe you ought to go now, Sonny,” said Harris.

“I am going.” Sonny thought of Barb in the car and how any more time he wasted here would postpone the drive to the state hospital. Or some other potentially meaningful activity. His breathing was even. “You aren't worth it,” he said again. “Your fraternity is about as important as a fucking booster club, and about that far away from anything real.”

If there was any reply, Sonny didn't hear it. He was gone out the door. Approaching the car slowly, he told himself,
I just made a speech
.

Barb wanted to know why he was laughing.

“I just got something off my chest; it's a good feeling.”

“I've always thought so. Okay, let's go to Anna; I want to see your mother.”

“Let's go to Anna.”

At the edge of Carbondale, he was driving too fast, with the rock 'n' roll too loud. He felt a touch of euphoria. Barb wanted his hand again; she took it into her lap at the same time she turned down the volume.

About the Author

James W. Bennett's uncompromising, challenging books for teens have earned him recognition as one of the nation's leading—and most provocative—novelists for young adults. His fiction has been used in curricula at the middle school, high school, and community college levels.

His 1995 novel,
The Squared Circle
, was named the year's finest by
English Journal
and the
Voice of Youth Advocates
.

Bennett has served as a guest author at Miami Book Fair International, as a featured speaker at the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the NCTE, and as a writer in residence (a program he established) for secondary schools in Illinois. He has also been the director for the Blooming Grove Writers Conference.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion there of in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or here in after invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1995 by James W. Bennett

Cover design by Mimi Bark

ISBN: 978-1-4976-8401-0

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com