by Callan Wink
August put the mask on, and with the first blow of the sledge against the wall was glad he had. The plaster, when pulverized, sent a fine mist of particles in a nasty cloud that immediately coated him in a layer of white. It was clear why Ethan had decided to delegate this particular task; it was going to be a dirty, tedious job. Still, he found demolition to be satisfying work, and he fell into a rhythm. It was gratifying to swing a sledgehammer as hard as he could against a smooth expanse of wall. After a few blows came the more time-consuming business of using the hammer and chisel to break off the lath, then the pry bar to remove protruding nails. When he was standing ankle deep in rubble, he’d scoop the mess into the wheelbarrow and take it out to the dumpster.
After he’d been at it a while, there was a knock on the door separating the back room from the kitchen and Julie stuck her head in, waving her hand in front of her face and wrinkling her nose.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “That is toxic. How are you doing? Can I get you some water or anything?”
Despite the mask August felt like his mouth was coated in a layer of chalk. “Water would be good,” he croaked. When she came back with the glass, he stood, gulping, at the edge of the kitchen so as not to track dust in, the mask down around his neck on the elastic band. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said. “I was thirsty.”
Julie was looking at him, a smile twitching on her lips. “I wish you could see yourself,” she said. “You’re, like, Albino Man.” She reached over and rubbed his eyebrow, holding her thumb up so he could see how white it was. She was wearing a thin white T-shirt and leggings. No bra. Her hair loose and tangled. She was standing close enough that August could smell sleep on her still.
“I’m going to make some coffee. You want any?”
“I’m okay. I’m just going to get back at it. Thanks for the water.”
“Of course. When you want more just come on in and help yourself. Don’t be shy. Hey, how old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Really? That’s it? I would have thought older. How tall are you?”
“Over six feet, I guess.”
She made a show of looking him up and down. “I’d guess so, too. Are you looking forward to starting school soon? No? Of course not. Stupid question. High school sucks. Okay, I’ll stop bothering you. I’m going to make this coffee and then haul my ass to yoga. Tell your mom I’m going to come over tonight, and I’m going to bring a nice salad and some wine and we’re going to sit out there and solve many of the world’s problems.”
“Okay. I’ll tell her.”
“I just love your mom, by the way. Horrible influence on me, though, with those little cigars. Okay. I’m going to leave you alone now, for real.”
* * *
—
August finished the job the next afternoon. He took the last load of broken plaster out to the dumpster and gave the floor a good sweep. He removed his gloves and beat the dust from his jeans with them. As he was putting his tools away, Julie came in and gave a low whistle. “Nice work,” she said. “Ethan is going to be happy. He wanted me to give this to you.” She handed him an envelope of cash, which he folded and stuck in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” She was looking at him unblinking, so that he had to stare down at his boots. “You’re kind of quiet, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. He hoped the plaster dust on his face was at least doing something to cover the particular shade of red it was turning.
“You remind me of Ethan. You could be his little brother or something. All business. No time for idle chitchat.” She was leaning against the doorjamb. One of her legs was crooked up so her foot was propped against her inner thigh, flamingo style, some kind of yoga move, maybe. “Was it tough, your parents getting divorced? Your mom said it was mostly amicable, but I know how those things go; there’s no way it didn’t get a little sticky at least for a while.”
August had his hand still stuffed in his jeans pocket, wrapped around the envelope of cash. “It was okay,” he said. “Probably for the best.”
“I’m sure you miss your dad, though, right? Your mom said you’re going to go back for Thanksgiving?”
August nodded.
“Well, that’s good. I know when my parents got divorced it was hard at first but then some positive things actually happened. Before, it had always been the two of them, together, kind of like a unit. And then when they split, I suddenly had two separate individuals, like, now they were able to act differently toward me and didn’t have to moderate their behavior to take into account what their partner thought. Anyway, I hope it’s going okay for you.”
“I’m fifteen,” August said. “I’m not a kid. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure. I know. Hey, what are you doing right now? You hungry? I was going to make some lunch.”
“I could eat.”
“Of course you could. Your mom tells me you go through a gallon of milk every other day.”
“I eat a lot of cereal.”
August followed Julie into the kitchen, and she started getting out sandwich fixings. “Wash your hands, you filthy boy,” she said. “Ham and Swiss okay?”
August nodded, and went to the sink and washed his hands studiously, probably for longer and more thoroughly than he’d ever done before. When the sandwiches were ready, they ate standing across from each other at the kitchen island. They chewed in silence for a while. “Are you looking for a job?” August said.
Julie put her sandwich down and crunched a chip. “Yes, Daddd,” she said. “I’m looking for a jobbb. But the problem is that my skill set, such as it is, is not exactly in high demand around here.”
“What’s your skill set?”
“Well, my degree is in political science and Spanish. I double majored.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Exactly. So I’m applying for some stuff. Nothing is anywhere near here, though. So that’s a whole different sort of problem. My mom says I’m getting too comfortable playing house with Ethan. Maybe she’s right, although I’d never give her the satisfaction of hearing me say it. That’s why I appreciate your mother so much. She actually gives me advice, not just bitchy judgment.”
“She’s never afraid to give advice. That’s for sure.”
“Well, hopefully you’re not afraid to take it.”
August shrugged. Chewed his sandwich. Tried to hold Julie’s gaze but failed. He didn’t know much about these sorts of things, but something told him that Ethan was in for a world of hurt.
When August started school, his days took on a more definable shape. Park High was much smaller than the one he’d attended in Grand Rapids, and he immediately realized that it was going to be harder to hide. Mr. Zwicky, the football coach, noticed him in the halls and was on him incessantly to try out for the team. That first practice he didn’t even have cleats. He slipped and slid all over the grass in his tennis shoes and felt like an idiot. He’d made up his mind to not come back the next day, but Mr. Zwicky called him into his office in the locker room and told him he liked what he’d seen. “I see potential in you, August,” he said. “Can I count on you coming back?” He wore sweatpants and a T-shirt that read PAIN IS MERELY WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY.
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Good man,” he said and then hopped up to dig around in the equipment room for a pair of old cleats.
August showed up for the next practice, and the one after that, and then, somehow, it seemed that he was on the football team. He hadn’t played Pop Warner like most of the guys, but he learned quickly, and his size alone got him a starting position on the JV squad. He didn’t possess great speed, but he had good hands and long arms and a quick first step. He played both sides of the ball. On offense he was a tight end, and he caught some passes and did a lot of blocking i
n their run-heavy scheme. Defense was his specialty, though. He liked hitting. As strong side end, as soon as the ball was snapped, he’d use his quick first step to get under the opposing lineman’s arms, jam a forearm in his throat under his face mask, and get him stood up and moving back. With the offensive lineman backpedaling, August’s attention would then shift toward the quarterback. His favorite moments were when there was a missed assignment and he could come in on the back side and lay into a quarterback with a full head of steam. It was a beautiful thing to put the tip of his shoulder pad square into the back of a quarterback who was scanning downfield for a receiver. To feel the hard woof of breath upon impact, to have the speed and control and strength to keep his legs driving, to feel the other guy’s feet leave the ground in that moment before August put him to the turf with every ounce of clean malice in his body. To roll off and stand over a crumpled form and revel in the hurt—that was part of it, too.
August hated practice, though. He hated the locker room and the smell of it. On some level he hated most of his teammates. He hated his coaches. He hated the thought of the games, the slow build of nerves over the week until Friday nights when, on more than one occasion, he found himself in the bathroom before taking the field, dry heaving over the toilet. He hated the fans yelling stupid shit during the on-field warm-ups before the games started. He hated the cheerleaders and the mascot and standing with his hand over his heart for the national anthem. He hated the smell of the whole place, the cut grass, the hot dogs and popcorn from the concession stand, the deeper scent of fall, the early darkness, the leaden pall of incipient snow.
He hated every single thing about football until the long whistle and the thump of the opening kickoff, and then it was pure love. He loved his teammates, their insane yelling and headbutts of congratulation. He loved his coaches, kneeling in the middle of the huddle on a time-out, adult men talking to them as if this moment—down by three but within striking distance and no time-outs left—was the most important thing in the world. He loved the cheerleaders, barelegged in the cold, laughing and doing shitty girl push-ups at every touchdown. He loved the smell, the torn-up sod on the field, and the way the lights made everything outside the realm of the one-hundred-yard field seem irrelevant. He even loved the fans, Ed Gaskill’s dad in overalls and stocking cap, booze in his coffee mug, standing against the chain-link fence screaming before the snap, Crush him, August. Crush him. Come on. Crush him.
His mother had been uncertain at first. “You do realize that I stopped smoking and drinking completely the whole time I was pregnant with you?” she said.
“And?” he said.
“And, now it pains me to know that you’re signing up to voluntarily bludgeon the very brain I’ve spent years trying to protect.”
“There are helmets involved.”
“I know. It’s just—your father never played football. I understand your desire to fit in at a new school, but do you even enjoy the sport? This seems out of the blue.”
After watching his first game, a cold drizzler against Ennis in which he’d recorded three sacks and recovered a fumble for a touchdown, she seemed to have a change of heart. She bought a pair of insulated overalls. Stood silently in the stands with her hands jammed in her pockets. Never clapping. Never cheering. Jaw set. Not sitting down for one single play as long as he was on the field. She said that, on second thought, maybe football was necessary for his development. “You’re not my son when you’re on that field,” she said. “But I realize that that violent guy, wherever he came from, is part of you, too. I just hope he stays right there, wearing the tight pants and the helmet, only smashing into other guys dressed like him who are also taking a hiatus from being their mothers’ sons.”
“It’s just a game, Mom,” August said. “Don’t make it weird.”
The day it happened he’d been in first period at school, study hall, and they had the radio on. It was KPIG out of Billings, and Neil Young was doing the “Rockin’ in the Free World”—he’d always remember that. Neil was screaming about a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand, when the song just stopped. The DJ came in, his voice halting and unsteady, talking about the reports coming out of New York City. Planes had been flown into the World Trade Center. The Twin Towers had come down. More reports from the Pentagon. Many feared dead. The situation was ongoing.
Everyone should go be with those they love right now. Pray for America.
Of course, normal activities were out of the question for the day. The teachers turned the TVs on to the news and everyone just watched. Some of the girls and female teachers cried, a few of the male teachers as well. None of the boys. Mr. Rogers, the social studies teacher, sat at his desk and shook his head. “We need to turn that whole damn desert to glass,” he said. “The gloves are coming off now.”
After school, Coach Zwicky called them all into the locker room and sat them down. He looked at them for a long time before saying anything, running his hand several times over his thinning flattop. “None of us will be able to focus on football today. No practice. But I’d like you all to do something together. If you want to go home to be with your family I understand, but maybe you all can get together at someone’s house, watch the news as a team. I’ll leave that up to you.”
He paused again. Cleared his throat. “Things are going to be happening,” he said. “I have no doubt some of you will be going. Joining up. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they bring the draft back. I’m not trying to scare anyone but you’re young men now, and this is a situation that is going to affect your generation. Maybe the situation. My friends and I had Vietnam, and this is what you guys are going to get, for better or worse. Now, I realize that for a while your mind is going to be on the events of the day. No way around it. But I want you to get a good night’s sleep. Get up tomorrow ready to work. We’ve got Belgrade on Friday, and I don’t need to remind you about the ass-kicking they gave us last year.”
They went to Gaskill’s house and made nachos. They all sat on the floor and watched the footage—the endless looping sequences of the planes crashing into the towers, the billowing smoke, the panic-stricken people fleeing on the sidewalks. When George W. Bush got on TV, there was a hush. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. Everyone clapped. August included.
“Rogers is right. We’re going to nuke those towelheads,” Gaskill said.
“One good thing about living in the middle of nowhere,” August said. “Not a single thing here worth crashing a plane into.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ramsay said. “They might as well have crashed the planes into everyone’s living rooms. Nothing is going to be the same after this. You watch.”
At the time, August thought this was a bit dramatic. Later he wondered if anyone else remembered Ramsay saying this—tried to determine if he was the only one who’d heard it, or if someone else had said it, or if he’d made it up completely.
After a while he went home and continued to watch the news with his mother. When Bush was on the screen her jaw tightened. “He’s going to get free rein now,” she said. “The little idiot. Probably the best thing that could have happened to him.”
* * *
—
That Friday, when they played Belgrade, the field was decorated with American flags. Over one hundred of them on stakes pounded into the ground on the sidelines. Both teams had American-flag stickers on their helmets. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played, the teams stood together in the middle of the field, players intermixed, arms linked. Belgrade won by three touchdowns, and most of their starters were sitting by halftime. It appeared that some things would
remain the same after all.
One morning August woke to find the mountains covered in snow, a low line of intermittent clouds clinging to the peaks above town. The cottonwoods along the river were shedding their leaves, and the black bears were moving close to town to feed, becoming bold in their all-consuming search for calories to get them through winter. He told his father about this when he called.
“I went outside the other morning,” he said, “and it was garbage day, so everyone on the street has their bin out on the curb, and I looked down the block and every bin had been tipped over. It was a bear for sure. We had one up in a tree behind school the other day.”
“No shit? Right in the middle of the day? In town?”
“Yep. Just after lunch. It had climbed this crab apple tree right next to a house, and it was eating the fruit that had fallen into the gutters.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Has it been getting cold out there yet?”
“Snow in the mountains just the other day. None of it is sticking in town. It’s been really windy. How’s it been there?”
“Not too bad. We’ve had some cold rain. Leaves are turning. Nice time of year here—well, you know how it is. School going okay?”
“School is going fine.”
“How’s your mother?”
“I think she’s doing okay.”
“Looking forward to seeing you for Thanksgiving. Lisa is going to be with her folks, so most of the time it will just be you and me. We can get up early and sit in the blind, see if anything comes along. I’ve been spotting a nice one occasionally, running the back fence in the morning. An eight-point at least, real heavy, kind of a wide spread, would be real good next year, but if I don’t shoot it you know damn well the Amish will, so there’s no sense waiting. I went and bought a big old stainless-steel pot and a propane burner. I’m going to get a bunch of peanut oil and we’re going to deep-fry a turkey. And then watch the Lions get their ass beat by whoever they’re playing. How’s that sound?”
