Stand-Off

by Andrew Smith

  Usually, during preseason friendly matches, if the score is tied when time has expired, they’d usually let it stand as a tie, since there was little sense in getting players messed up over a game that didn’t count for anything. But the coaches talked to the referee, and both sides agreed to play a sudden-death overtime so that the game would end with one team winning.

  Which meant someone had to lose.

  Our opportunity (to win, not to lose) came quickly. Overtime was our kickoff, and I was the guy who did kickoffs. I’d been working on high, deep hangers that gave our fastest backs the opportunity to get underneath them and actually receive our own kicks, and I nailed one. The Bellingham fullback took his eyes off the ball, which gave our inside center, Corn Dog (you really do not want to know how he got that name) a chance to get under it and take the ball for Pine Mountain.

  JP came crashing up from the back, hollering for the ball. It was a very risky move, considering the fullback is the last line of defense and there was a hell of a lot of open pitch behind us.

  Just as he got caught up in a crushing maul that was not going to move anywhere, Corn Dog popped the ball back to JP, who was busting through at full speed. JP made it over the goal line and—whack!—he got hit so hard by one of Bellingham’s flankers, it sounded like a two-by-four breaking on a cinder-block wall.

  Okay, so here’s another rugby lesson for you if you don’t know the game: In order to score a try (which is what a goal is called in rugby), the ball has to be touched down onto the grass in goal by the ball carrier. This is where the ridiculous term “touchdown” comes from in American football—where nothing at all gets touched down and there is most often silly dancing involved, which is absolutely against the law in rugby. If an opposing player can slip his hand (or any other body part—ewww!) between the ball and the grass, then the score does not count and the ball is called “held up in goal,” which is what looked like was going to happen to JP.

  Our guys piled onto JP from behind, trying to get him down to the grass, while the Bellingham guys plowed into JP from the opposite side, trying to keep him up on his feet. I stayed back, just off T-Bag’s right shoulder, in case the ball got to our scrummie.

  It didn’t.

  JP Tureau was monstrously strong. The muscles on his legs strained so hard, I swear it looked like he was about to snap his thigh bones like pencils. He drove forward and got the ball lower. And that’s when just about the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a dude with a titanic ego like JP Tureau’s happened to JP Tureau and his titanic ego.

  The HMS JP Tureau hit the knock-on iceberg.

  As JP got the ball down to grass level, a surging press from Bellingham twisted him around (it looked like JP nearly snapped in half), and—plunk!—the ball squirted forward from JP’s fingers and bounced free. That, in rugby, is what is called a knock-on, which means the ball carrier somehow allowed his ball to drop free in front of his body, and it is not a good thing. When it happens in goal, the referee calls for a scrum (with the opposing team given the slight advantage of feeding the ball in) on the five-meter line.

  So this was it: We were close to the goal, in a scrum, with Bellingham butted up against a line of touch—a perfect storm for our little wheel play.

  In set plays, like scrums, I would call audibles to the team. The stand-off, number ten, is equivalent to quarterback in American football, so that was my responsibility. As the front- and second-row guys began lining up, Spotted John turned back to me and pointed his index finger at his left palm, which meant he wanted to try to sneak the ball out from the scrum. The only two players who are allowed to reach below the scrum’s tangle of bodies and pull the ball out are the scrum half and the eight-man, and when the number eight did it—this was usually rare—it often caught the other team by complete surprise.

  I shook my head, dismissing Spotted John’s idea.

  “Twenty-two point five!” I called, which was the signal for the tighthead prop to drive an extra step forward and the loosehead prop to ease back after engagement, which would angle the scrum, make it more difficult for the Bellingham scrum half to reach the ball, and paint their number ten into a corner.

  The scrum was set. The teams hit. It sounded like a herd of bulls slamming into a herd of bigger bulls, and the twist worked perfectly. Cotton Balls, who was a natural lefty anyway, hooked the ball back toward Eli Koenig, Tarzan, our number seven flanker, and Eli kept the ball right at the edge of the scrum. The Bellingham scrum half couldn’t even see the ball through the forest of legs below the pack.

  Timmy Bagnuolo waited. He played the position perfectly—better than Seanie had done all last season. T-Bag glanced at me as I faded farther back to the center of the field. He knew what I was thinking, which, again, is what a good scrummie has to be able to do. Then he went for it. He reached in and grabbed the ball perfectly and sailed a diving pass back to me—as hard as the kid could throw.

  The ball stung when it hit my hands. In my peripheral vision, I could see the Bellingham boys looking confused and disorganized—most of them hadn’t realized the ball was out of the scrum. I took a step forward. I dropped the ball right in front of my left foot, then kicked.

  The ball spun, end over end, and made a perfect rainbow, up between the posts.

  That’s what’s called a drop goal in rugby. Not many teams—especially at the high school level—ever attempt drop goals, but it was something I (and Coach M) loved to see put into play, and it won the game for us.

  Final score: 6–3.

  The Bellingham boys were stunned. I heard a couple of them say “What the fuck?” and “No fucking way!” And it was such a tough game, most of them just sat down where they were in the grass and shook their heads while the Pine Mountain boys cheered and swarmed around and piled on top of me to the point where I actually thought I was going to be smothered and die beneath fourteen (well, thirteen, actually, because I’m sure JP Tureau wouldn’t get involved in a Ryan Dean West dogpile) stinky, sweaty, gross boys.

  The referee blew the whistle—a long continuous blast with his hand straight up in the air, followed by three more blasts, signaling a score and the end of play. And despite being crushed and dripped on by boy sweat and gasping in the disgusting gaseous vapors of an entire rugby team, it was probably the best feeling I’d ever had in more than a year (if you exclude what Annie and I did the previous Sunday, that is).

  It turned out there really were fourteen guys on top of me, because the Abernathy piled on last. When they disassembled the pyramid of bodies, all the guys stood around rubbing the Abernathy’s hair and tossing their soaked jerseys at him. That’s when I saw JP down the field, in the same spot where he’d played to watch for a kick out of that last scrum.

  He was lying on his back in the grass with one knee bent up and one leg turned over to the side, and he wasn’t moving.

  That last hit on him, when he was in goal, really did JP in.

  I walked back to where JP was splayed out on the grass and stood over him.

  “Are you okay?”

  JP opened his eyes. “I’m wiped.”

  “So am I.”

  I held out my hand to help him up. JP took it, and I pulled him to his feet.

  I said, “It was a great game, man.”

  JP nodded. That was about as nice as we’d ever be to each other.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  “HEY.”

  I shook Dominic Cosentino’s hand and sat down across the table from him at our postgame dinner.

  “Hi, Nico. It is okay if I call you Nico, right?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “I’m glad you came. What’d you think?”

  “You guys are really good. Nice drop goal, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Hey . . . I thought you weren’t coming to school here.”

  I pointed at my necktie. As always after our match, we had to shower and get dressed back into our school ties so we could sit down to dinner in the basketball gym with th
e boys from Bellingham, who got to shower and put on their warm-ups. They were a club team—not a private school—and I’d bet that most of them had never even worn a necktie.

  Nico said, “I’m not going here. Coach McAuliffe told me I should dress this way so I’d blend in if I wanted to hang out with you, since I can’t get a bus back until tomorrow.”

  So Coach did know that Nico was coming to the game.

  We sat at the end of a long banquet table that was pretty much vacant, away from the other players, most of whom were snaking through food lines and filling up plates with pizza and salad and cookies—a typical postmatch meal for us.

  I took a bite and looked at Nico, who was watching me like I was supposed to do something, but I didn’t know what it was.

  “You should get some food,” I said. Then I realized he probably felt awkward and out of place, so I added, “I’ll go with you.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll get it.”

  Nico got up and went to the food line.

  He looked so much like Joey that I honestly wanted to hug him, but that would have been too weird—especially in front of all the other Pine Mountain guys who had to have been wondering who the new kid was and why was he sitting with me, not to mention why I was hugging him. Also, Nico’s eyes were very sad, unlike Joey’s, and that made me feel especially sorry for him.

  He came back with pizza and cookies. No salad. Good choice.

  “By the way,” he said, “thanks for introducing me to Annie. She’s such an amazing person.”

  I blushed. Goddammit. “I know, right?”

  “So, what are we supposed to talk about?” Nico said.

  “Probably nothing,” I said.

  Nico shrugged. “Okay with me, bro.”

  “Well. What I meant was that we shouldn’t worry about talking about anything specific. We should just be normal, right? I mean, it’s not like a therapy session or anything.”

  “I go to therapy,” Nico said.

  I nodded. “So do I.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you moved up here to Oregon?” I remembered how frequently Joey had flown down to San Francisco last year to spend time with his family.

  “We actually came from here. We have a house on the beach in Pacific City. It’s why Joey and me both wanted to go to Pine Mountain. Our dad went here. So, after, you know . . . we just wanted to come back.”

  “Oh. Pacific City. Nice.”

  Then Nico told me, “I thought I was going to die after Joey got killed.”

  I got a pizza-crust-corner throat slash and washed it down with a gulp of lukewarm soda. “Me too. Something happened inside me, and it’s like I can’t get it back.”

  “Losers, huh?”

  I smiled. “I always think I’m a loser.”

  “Joey said that about you.”

  “Well, if Joey said it, then it must be true.”

  Nico shook his head. “No. Joey didn’t think you were a loser. He told me you always called yourself a loser.”

  I thought about Joey’s to-do list I’d found in O-Hall. I wondered if Nico knew anything about what Joey needed to tell me. But I decided I wasn’t going to say anything else about Joey. It was too early in the evening, and I wanted to get to know his little brother—who seemed like an okay guy and also happened to be just about my age.

  “I hope you like watching the Cooking Channel,” I said.

  Nico leaned in like he was sharing a secret that shouldn’t be spoken out loud in the presence of all these rugby guys. “Dude. You watch the Cooking Channel?”

  I shook my head. “My roommate does. He’s like a savant when it comes to cooking.”

  Nico said, “I’d lock him in the closet or something.”

  “Can’t,” I said. “We don’t even have closets, and the kid is so claustrophobic, he’d probably stop breathing.”

  “And you’re rooming with him because why, exactly?”

  “Because I am a total loser, Nico.”

  Nico smiled. It made me feel good.

  Then I saw the Abernathy—all suited up in his perfectly creased Pine Mountain size extra-small boy suit (he must have thrown all the guys’ clothes in the washers and then waited for everyone to leave the locker room before changing)—winding his way like a malnourished albino chipmunk through a redwood forest of rugby players, balancing a plate of food in his hands while everyone he passed smeared their fingers through his hair.

  “There he is now,” I said.

  “That little guy?”

  “Yep. That’s my roomie, our team manager and laundry boy, Sam Abernathy. He’s twelve.”

  Nico got this wide-eyed, understanding look on his face. “Oh! So that’s why they put you guys together.”

  Apparently, Joey had told Nico pretty much everything he knew about me, which was pretty much everything I knew about myself.

  “Hi, Ryan Dean!” The Abernathy, all excitement and wriggling joy, sat down right next to me.

  No. Not now.

  Then the little peach-assed puppy fired his glinting love-beam eyes at Nico, stuck his hand across the table, and said, “I’m Sam, Ryan Dean’s roommate. Are you new here?”

  And Nico, entirely not repulsed by Sam Abernathy’s enthusiasm, shook the kid’s hand and said, “Hi. I’m Nico. And I’m . . . No, I’m not new here. Ryan Dean and I have known each other for a while, and he invited me to the game.”

  “It was a great game!” the Abernathy burbled.

  Nico took a bite of pizza and said, “You guys are a great team.”

  It looked like Sam Abernathy grew two inches on the spot, thinking how Nico had just confirmed he was part of the team.

  No. Never.

  And then, this:

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Why do you have to be such an asshole?

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Yes you do. You’re being an asshole to the Abernathy. And after all the shit he’s done for you in the last few weeks.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I just want to be left alone. I need to talk to Nico. Maybe he can help me sort things out.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Maybe he can help you stop being an asshole, too. The Abernathy saved your ass from drowning in a freezing lake. He stepped into the middle of things when JP was getting ready to kick the shit out of you.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Whatever.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Dude. He makes popcorn for you. He does your laundry and folds your clothes. He would do anything for you. You’re his fucking hero, and his hero happens to be an asshole.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I don’t want him to be my friend.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: And that’s exactly what’s wrong with you. You think you lost your heart. But you threw it away. You don’t give a shit about anyone. Not even Annie.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Shut the fuck up and leave me alone!

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Asshole.

  “Hey. Dude. Are you having a seizure or something?”

  “Huh?”

  When I snapped out of it, Spotted John was standing next to our table, holding a plate that looked like it had enough food on it to feed the population of Wyoming. “I said, who’s your friend, and do you mind if I sit down with you guys, Ryan Dean?”

  “Oh. Yeah. No. I’m sorry. I was thinking about something. Sure. Sit down, Spotted John. This is . . . uh . . . my friend, Nico. Nico, this is Spotted John.”

  And the Abernathy half whispered, “But, dude, seriously, don’t ask him where the name came from.”

  Nico grinned and whispered back, “I already know.”

  Yeah. Confirmed. Joey told his little brother everything.

  I noticed something strange that evening at dinner. Naturally, there was no getting around the fact that Nico was Joey Cosentino’s younger brother, and at least half the guys on the team had played alongside Joey last year. So once the word spread around, I could see how the guys all quietly glanced over at us and kind of stayed back, like there was an invisible force field repel
ling them from getting too close.

  It was a nearly sacred thing, I thought—that not one of the boys could bring himself to touch a life which had been so closely touched by death.

  Teenagers—teenage boys, especially—just don’t have the words sometimes to say what they need to say to another boy who’s had to deal with death.

  It was weird to the point of creepy, and I decided that I’d ask Mrs. Dvorak about that next time we talked.

  And speaking of weird to the point of creepy, there was definitely an armistice on the awkward silence around me and Nico that took effect when Seanie Flaherty showed up after his trip to the school clinic.

  “Dude. Let’s see it,” I said.

  Seanie sat across from me, next to Nico. I was sandwiched between the Abernathy and the ninja. I stood up so I could look at the top of Seanie’s head.

  Gross.

  A picket line of black stitches pinched shut the bloodstained lips of Seanie Flaherty’s head wound. But what made it particularly difficult to look at was that there was an inch-wide swath of iodine-stained naked, alabaster-white Seanie Flaherty cave-boy skin all around the gash that had been shaved completely bald.

  “Oh,” I said, which was a failed attempt at masking the I’m-completely-done-eating disgust I felt.

  “I can’t see it,” Seanie said (duh!). “What’s it look like?”

  “A vagina,” Spotted John said. Mrs. Blyleven would be proud. Then he added, “Dude. You have a vagina on your head.”

  Seanie, who undoubtedly never wanted to hear that he had a vagina on his head, slumped down in his seat, dejected, as guys came from all around to see.

  “And the worst part,” Seanie said, “was not only that your hot nurse wasn’t there to give me a sponge bath, but it was just me and Doctor No-gloves, all alone in his creepy strip-down-to-your-underwear examination chamber. He gave me a tetanus shot. In my ass cheek. And then he wrote a note to Coach M. I have a fucking concussion. I’m out for at least a month, maybe more. He wouldn’t have even let me come home if I didn’t promise to have someone from the team keep an eye on me tonight.”