Home of the Braves

by David Klass

  “Easy, Mouse,” I said. “You’re okay now. Just take it easy and breathe. Who did this to you?”

  “Do you need a doctor?” Mr. Murphy cut in, continuing the unwrapping. “Are you hurt? Is anything broken?”

  Mouse spread his newly freed arms. “I don’t think so.”

  We unwrapped his legs, and soon he was totally un-mummified. He sat there, on a carton, buck naked, his arms wrapped around his body, shivering even though it wasn’t at all cold. I found his soccer shorts in a corner and brought them to him, and he put them on. And Mr. Murphy found an old blanket and draped it over his shoulders. Just covering himself up seemed to make Mouse feel a little better.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I … I was with the team … celebrating … and I went out to get a drink of water …” Mouse gasped. “They came up from behind … put a bag over my head … told me not to scream. And they dragged me in here.”

  “Who did it?” I asked, ready to go get some revenge.

  “Tony Borelli. Jack Hutchings. Chris Coleman. And some of their hard guy friends. Call the police.”

  “Sure, that’s what we should do,” Mr. Murphy said, and he stood up. “But, and don’t take this the wrong way—but how do you know who did this to you if they put something over your head?”

  Mouse looked at him. “I recognized their voices.”

  “All three of them? How do you know they had other friends with them?”

  “I heard lots of footsteps,” Mouse responded, and then he exploded: “WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME QUESTIONS?” His squeaky voice cracked. There were red blotches on his skin where the tape had been tight, but otherwise he didn’t appear seriously injured. “WHY DON’T YOU JUST CALL THE POLICE?”

  “Oh, I will, I promise,” Mr. Murphy said soothingly, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to call anyone. He walked over to the propped-open closet door, gently shut it, and then came back and sat down next to us. “But first I want you to think about something very seriously. Give me thirty seconds, son. That’s all I ask.”

  Mouse looked back at him. Mr. Murphy was in his sixties. He’d been an assistant line coach for the football team for three decades. He was a big, balding man with the physique of a water tower and a potbelly that sagged out over his belt. He helped run the school’s audiovisual services, but there was no question that the football team was his real love. “See, with the new policy at this school, if you accuse people, they’re gonna be expelled—”

  “They should be,” Mouse snapped back.

  “Yeah, but here’s my point. If they’re expelled, there goes the football season. We’re gonna be in the county championships this year, so you’ll be punishing the whole team.”

  “Great. Punish them. Call the police,” Mouse insisted.

  “Just hear me out, son,” Mr. Murphy said in a low, cool voice. “Once I do call the police, then we’re going down that road, and there’s no turning back, so this is your chance to stop and think. Even if you’re right about who did this to you, can you prove it? You didn’t even see them, you just heard them. Probably they’ll have some friends who can provide an alibi. It will come down to your word against all of theirs. So all I’m saying is you do have a choice.”

  “What choice?” Mouse demanded suspiciously.

  “Let me deal with this,” Mr. Murphy said. “I will make sure the guys responsible are found and punished. But you won’t be punishing the rest of the team. And you won’t be going public with your accusations, which could do you harm.”

  Mr. Murphy had an arm around Ed the Mouse now, and he was rubbing Ed’s shoulder, as if to restore circulation. His whisper was fast and persuasive and almost hypnotic. “Because, remember, son, you have to walk back into this school tomorrow morning. And the morning after that, too. Something like this can get out of control. You accuse somebody with a lot of friends, and you never get away from that. It follows you. And eventually it catches up to you. So mad as you are now, you gotta be sensible. Better to let me deal with this, and we’ll all come out ahead.”

  Ed glanced at me. “Your call, Mouse,” I told him. “You want the police, I’ll call ’em for you right now. If somebody did this to me, I’d sure want to get back at them.”

  “You will be getting them back,” Mr. Murphy assured him. “I will deal with them with a heavy hand. I’ll make them regret the day they were born. Joe’s right, it is your call, son. Listen, I know your pride has taken a knock—”

  “My pride?” Mouse looked back at the big football coach, who was still rubbing his neck and shoulders, searching for something in Mr. Murphy’s eyes that he did not find. He tried to speak, but his high-pitched voice cracked again, and then the cracks widened into a ravine of anger and fear and humiliation, and I saw tears brim in my friend’s eyes and start running down his cheeks. “They kidnapped me … They dragged me back here … They held me down … stripped me … I couldn’t even breathe … I could have died …”

  Mr. Murphy ran a hand through Mouse’s hair. His voice was a friendly, wise whisper. “You gotta let that go, son. I’m gonna tell you something I never told anybody Years ago, when I was in the Navy, there was an initiation. Bunch of guys dragged me out of my bunk. Branded me with a coat hanger, right on the butt. I screamed bloody murder. I was going to report them all. But someone talked to me the way I’m talking to you. I didn’t report them. Best decision of my life, son. Some of them became my friends. I’ve still got the little brand mark, but I’ve gotten kind of fond of it over the years. It was just a prank that went a little too far. They weren’t bad guys deep down. No need to ruin a whole bunch of lives over something that’s already happened. Can’t put the spilled milk back in the bottle, can you? Can you?”

  Mouse looked back at him, hesitated for about ten seconds, and then shivered, and said so softly I could barely hear him, “No, I guess you can’t.”

  “There you go,” Mr. Murphy said. “Now, let’s get you a shirt. I’m proud of you, son. I’m proud of both of you.”

  20

  Maybe Tuesday was a slow news day Maybe all the world leaders were on vacation at the same time, and there were temporary cease-fires in every far-flung battle zone, and no meteorites were discovered streaking toward the earth. Because on Tuesday morning, when I came down to breakfast, my father lowered his Pop-Tart and shoved the front section of the Bergen Record in my direction. “Hey, Captain Joe, you made the big time. You’re even quoted. Check it out.”

  We were that rare local sports story that spills onto the front page. There was even a picture of Antonio scoring his third goal. The headline read: SOCCER PHENOM FROM BRAZIL LIGHTS UP LOCAL SOCCER FIELD. I could tell that the reporter who wrote the story was used to covering other sports. He got a lot of the soccer details wrong, but what he lacked in soccer knowledge, he made up for in hype: “The heretofore hapless Lawndale Braves, one of the perennial also-rans in Bergen soccer, have become a powerhouse overnight,” the article began. “Antonio Silva, a Brazilian striker, has transferred to the school and instantly becomes one of the best players ever to grace a New Jersey school yard soccer field. He was dazzling in his debut game yesterday, scoring four phenomenal goals as Lawndale won for the first time ever against league-leading Emerson. ‘We hit the lottery,’ Lawndale captain Joe Brickman said gratefully.”

  I handed the paper back to my father. “The story goes on in the Sports Section,” he said. “And there are more pictures. Don’t you even want to see?”

  “Not really,” I told him. “I was there.”

  “But it’s about your team. First time I can remember anyone saying anything good about you guys.”

  “True enough. Catch you later, Dad.”

  He heard something in the tone of my voice and grabbed my wrist. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I didn’t want to talk about Antonio and the soccer team, so I went in another direction. “A friend of mine got ganged up on yesterday,” I told him.

  Physical violence was a subjec
t that never failed to interest my father. “Yeah? They beat him up?”

  I nodded. “They got him pretty bad.”

  “It happened at school? With all those police and security precautions?”

  “Yup. Right at school. So what do I do? I know who did it. Do I go after them?”

  This was one of the first times I had ever turned to my father for advice, and he didn’t hesitate for a second. “Nope. You can’t fight somebody else’s battles,” he said. “Your buddy’s got to learn to fight for himself.”

  “What if he can’t? What if he’s not a fighter?”

  “Then he’s got to learn to get along better.”

  “You mean he’s gotta pay respect?” I asked. “You’re saying what Kevin Hutchings said the other night?”

  My father didn’t appreciate me likening him to his old enemy. “All I’m saying is that the way it is in school is the way it is out of school,” he said. “If you can’t fight, then learn to live so you don’t get picked on.”

  I thought it over. On some level it made sense. I knew Mouse had brought it on himself. But it also didn’t seem like a guy should have to walk through school for a week, bowing and scraping, just to avoid worse punishment. “And would you have fought with Kevin Hutchings Friday, if you guys had found each other in the crowd?” I asked him.

  “Sure.” My dad nodded. “I was ready to go.”

  “Even though you weren’t proud of fighting with him the first time, years ago? You would have done it all over again?”

  “Kevin hasn’t changed,” my dad said, his voice getting a little louder. “He’s still a loud-mouthed punk who comes to our gym, in our town, and starts pushing people around. You can’t take a back step to a guy like that, Joe, or you’ll spend your whole life retreating.”

  “Okay,” I said, “thanks for the advice.”

  “Anytime, Captain Joe,” Dad said, and glanced back at the paper. “So, is this Brazilian guy really such a stud?”

  “People seem to think so. I’ll catch you later.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Ed the Mouse didn’t come to school that Tuesday. When I walked him home the previous evening, after he had showered and dressed, he hadn’t even let me come into his house. I don’t think it was physical pain that was bothering him—I think it was the humiliation of being set upon, and the fear of what could have happened, that had done the damage. They’d given him an airhole to breathe, but it could have been a long time before someone found him. Anything could have happened in that storage closet. He could’ve even died, surrounded by football pads and old helmets.

  I tried to call Mouse from school, but even though I was pretty sure he was up there in that big house on Grandview Lane, he wasn’t answering the phone. I darted into the school’s computer lab between classes and e-mailed him, but he didn’t respond. Clearly, whatever he was doing, he wanted to be left alone.

  Antonio had become “the Phenom” to everyone at Lawndale High—the newspaper’s nickname stuck. I guess any kid who gets on the front page of newspapers, and appears on TV, becomes a celebrity in his school. But Antonio had always acted the part of a celebrity, from the first moment I met him. Now, as other kids turned to look at him when he passed in the corridor, and as teachers and even the policemen on duty shook his hand and asked him about the game, it didn’t seem that he had changed. Rather, the vibe I got from him was that he was finally getting his due. Kris was always near him, talking to him, holding his hand. Bitterly, I thought to myself that she was basking in his glory, and that they deserved each other.

  That afternoon, after soccer practice, I walked by the football field and saw Mr. Murphy out there with Jack Hutchings, Tony Borelli, and Chris Coleman. The rest of the team had finished and gone in to shower, so it was just the four of them. Jack’s knee had healed enough for him to come to practice again, even though he wasn’t running plays. Now he wasn’t running at all-he was crawling. Mr. Murphy was working the three of them like dogs, making them crawl back and forth over the hundred-yard field from goalpost to goalpost while he shouted at them and occasionally whipped footballs at them. I could tell by the way they were crawling that they were exhausted and that their arms and legs were cramping. I didn’t have much sympathy.

  I tried calling Mouse that night, but no one at the McBean home ever answered. I figured Ed had tuned out from the world for a while, and his father was probably working late, as usual. After leaving three messages for Mouse on the answering machine, I gave up.

  He wasn’t in school the next day either, and I was starting to worry Even someone as brilliant as Ed the Mouse can’t miss too much school. I remembered how he had looked, when we unwrapped him, how he’d sat on the carton, shivering. I guessed that he was still suffering, and that if he didn’t come to school, I should go to him.

  Mouse wasn’t the only guy in pain. I passed Tony Borelli and Chris Coleman in the hall between second and third periods that Wednesday. They were shuffling along stiff-limbed, wincing with each step. They glared at me when I passed, and even though no words were spoken, I got the message that they knew I had found Ed the Mouse, and they blamed me for their punishment. I glared right back at them. What they had done to Ed made me sick. Anytime they wanted to take me on, I was, to use my father’s phrase, ready to go.

  And with all the other stuff going on, I still had to attend classes and force myself to pay attention and take notes. I was no longer lab partners with Kris in advanced biology—we had moved our desks apart, and except for an occasional hello or goodbye we weren’t communicating too much. That Wednesday we dissected crayfish, and I paired up with Phil Elliot, a tall guy with bad acne and even worse breath. I don’t mean to be gross, but his breath was so bad that it even made the formaldehyde smell good, and I was thinking they should have just let Phil breathe on the crayfish and that would have preserved it.

  We were five minutes into the dissection when the fearsome Mrs. Eckes charged into our biology room with another of her dreaded summonses from the front office. The class went quiet, as everyone waited to see who was in trouble. Mr. Desoto looked at her note, and then strolled over and gave me a worried look. “They want you at the office again, Joe,” he said in a low voice. “Everything okay?”

  He had been nicer to me than any teacher I ever had, and was probably the only member of the Lawndale High faculty who believed that I had any promise at all. I wished I could have been more reassuring. “I hope so,” I told him. “Sorry I can’t finish the crayfish.”

  In Vice Principal Tobias’s office, it was a replay of my last meeting, except the pretty young policewoman wasn’t there to soften things up. It was just Coyle and Tobias, and this time they didn’t keep me waiting. “Close the door,” the vice principal said when I entered, so I pulled the door closed, shutting us in. “Sit down,” the big man said, so I sat. “No one can hear what you say to us, and we won’t tell anyone,” he said. “So how about telling us the truth.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “About Monday. Something happened in school,” Coyle said.

  I shrugged. “Lots of things probably happened on Monday.”

  “Don’t you sass me,” Coyle snapped.

  “Ask me a question, I’ll give you an answer,” I told him. “What happened? What do you want to know about?”

  “If we knew what happened, you wouldn’t be here,” Coyle said in a low voice. “We do know it was long after school. In the basement. Start talking, joe.”

  I was tempted to tell them. But I figured that if I did, it would get Mr. Murphy in serious hot water. And it would land Jack, Chris, and Tony in big trouble, too, and piss off the whole football team. My father had advised me to fight my own battles, and this wasn’t one of them. This battle belonged to Ed the Mouse, and he had made the decision to go along with Mr. Murphy and keep the episode quiet. Besides, I didn’t care too much for Tobias and Coyle, and I didn’t like the way they were pressuring me.

  “I don’t have anything to tell.�
��

  “Just like you didn’t have anything to tell about what happened on the golf course,” Vice Principal Tobias said.

  “Yes, sir. Just like that.”

  For a few seconds it was quiet in the room. They looked at me and I looked back at them. Vice Principal Tobias took a fold of flesh from his chin and rolled it between his fingers like cookie dough. “Congratulations on your soccer victory,” he said. “It was very exciting. I saw the game myself. It would be a shame if the captain had to leave the team because of a discipline problem.”

  “We all appreciated you coming out to watch,” I said back to him. “I can tell you’re a real fan.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear what I said about leaving the team,” he growled.

  “I don’t see why the captain would have to leave the team if he hasn’t done anything wrong,” I answered back.

  “You wouldn’t know anything about a hole in a band practice room?” Coyle asked. “Somebody punched through a wall. Damaged school property.”

  It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t answer. They had me.

  “’Cause a janitor said he saw you leaving the band room the afternoon the vandalism occurred, holding your hand like it was injured,” Coyle continued. “And, later, he found a bloody paper towel in the bathroom you went into. How’s the hand, by the way? Didn’t break anything?”

  “No,” I said. “Thanks for asking. My hand’s okay.”

  “I take it you’re not a music fan?” Coyle said. “I never saw you as one, Joe, when you were drying my car. You used to do a real good job on my hubcaps and fender.”

  “You read any good magazines lately?” I asked him. “I remember the ones you used to keep in your patrol car.”