Gym Candy

by Carl Deuker

  We were just about there, just about in the state playoffs.

  Our fans, dry under the overhang, were on their feet, cheering our defense. The Foothill coach could feel the game slipping away, and a little desperation crept into his play calling. There was time for him to stick to his game plan and run a balanced attack, but on the next series, all the plays were passes. Foothill clicked on the first one, a bullet over the middle for fifteen yards. But the next two were little dink jobs in the flat that gained six yards total, setting up third and four.

  Carlson guessed pass and sent the two outside linebackers on a blitz. He was right—but it wasn't the blitz that blew up the play. The Spartan quarterback lost his footing in the mud before any of our guys reached him. He lost eight yards, making it fourth and twelve. The punting team came onto the field and kicked the ball away.

  We took over on our own thirty-three-yard line with less than five minutes left. All we needed were a couple of first downs, and the way to get them was to have me run the ball right down their throats. Carlson knew it and called my number three straight times. I got us a first down; more important, the game clock kept ticking: 3:28 ... 3:27 ... 3:26...

  All Carlson had to do was keep calling plays for me. It didn't matter that Foothill was stacking the line. I could still gain yards. I had the strength; I knew I had it.

  Instead, when he saw eight Foothill guys crowding the line of scrimmage, he decided to go for the knockout. The call was for a bomb to DeShawn on a fly pattern. Drew took the snap, faked a handoff to me, and dropped back to pass. The play might have worked, but as Drew released the ball he was blind-sided by a defensive end. The ball fluttered into the night air like a wounded duck. The cornerback covering DeShawn cut underneath him and made the interception on a dead run, and then he was off—down the sideline.

  Touchdown.

  Drew was down from the hit, and he stayed lying in that cold muck for a couple of minutes. When he finally got up, he was holding his right shoulder and grimacing as Stimes led him to the locker room.

  Foothill's band was playing their fight song over and over; their fans were delirious; their entire team had poured into the end zone to swarm the cornerback who'd scored the touchdown. Their coaches were trying to get them out of the end zone, but it was too late. Yellow penalty flags for excessive celebration were all over the field. The extra point made the score 17–13, but instead of kicking off from the forty, the penalty pushed them back to their twenty-five.

  That's when Kane came through. He fielded the kick on our thirty-five. Instead of messing around with fancy moves this way and that, he brought the ball straight upfield. We had a great wedge and he made it all the way to Foothill's forty before he was brought down.

  There was 2:52 left.

  Plenty of time.

  With Drew in the locker room, our quarterback was Tom McGinley, a tall, skinny senior. When I first saw him at tryouts, I'd thought he was the water boy. It turned out he was a good athlete; he just didn't have size. He could do everything on a football field but survive the hits.

  Carlson didn't panic and have McGinley try to do more than he could. Instead, he stayed with me. The ball was slick, so I had to be extra careful to tuck it away and to hold it tight. This was not the time for a fumble. A sweep left for eight yards .. . 2:40 . .. 2:39. A little screen pass, not much more than a handoff, for seven more. A draw play for six that got us into the red zone ... 1:51 ... 1:50 ... 1:49.

  Everybody in the stadium knew I was getting the ball on every play. Foothill's coach assigned a linebacker to bird-dog me. It didn't matter. On a quick draw I drove down inside the ten for a first and goal with just over a minute left.

  But then, on first down and goal, McGinley fumbled the snap. For a second I thought a Foothill guy would recover, but when it squirted free from him, our left guard fell on it back in the slop on the twelve-yard line. We had to use our second time-out to regroup.

  When we huddled, McGinley's eyes were scared. "Just watch the snap into your hands and then stick the ball out for me," I said.

  On the next play, I went off tackle to the six, and on third down swept wide right, taking the ball down to the three-yard line.

  Fourth down.

  We took our final time-out. I sucked down some water as we huddled around Carlson. "Thirty-four toss sweep on one," he said. "Linemen, hold your blocks." Then Carlson looked at McGinley. "Make a nice smooth toss and Mick will take it to the house."

  The referee blew his whistle. We huddled up, and McGinley repeated what Carlson had called. "Thirty-four toss sweep on one." Guys clapped and trotted to the line of scrimmage. I liked that the snap was on one, liked that there was no waiting around, liked that it was now.

  "Hut!" McGinley called, and the center snapped the ball.

  The pitchout was right on the money. I watched the ball into my hands, tucked it away against my chest, and then drifted down the line, looking for a crack. And there it was, a small opening between the guard and the tackle. I cut upfield, but right then a Foothill linebacker shed his blocker. It was number 50, the same guy who'd brought me down the year before. He hit me at the one-yard line. For a split second we were both frozen, both straining, neither yielding. But this time it was his legs that gave way, this time I drove him back, and a second later I was churning forward, across the goal line and into the end zone. I raised both arms high above my head, reaching the football toward the sky, the rain pouring down on me like diamonds.

  15

  We'd just won the title, but in the locker room afterward, there wasn't much hollering and cheering, because we were all too dog-tired to scream. I looked around for Drew and I found him by Mr. Stimes. I thought he'd be hurting, but he looked okay. "How you feeling?" I said.

  He nodded. "I'm fine. A stinger is all it was. I couldn't feel my arm for a few minutes there, and then the feeling came back."

  "So you'll be able to play next week?"

  "I could play right now." He paused. "Mick—"

  Just then Carlson stood up on a chair and blew his whistle. "Listen up, gentlemen. We've got the back room at Chicago's rented," he shouted. "The booster club is paying, so get into your street clothes and get over there before the pizza gets cold. Five-minute walk."

  DeShawn came up. "You heard the man," he said to Drew. "Let's get a move on."

  Drew turned to me. "We'll talk later."

  "Sure," I said, and I moved back to my locker area.

  Guys dressed quickly and headed for the door in groups of three and four. I stood, looking around; nobody had asked me to join them. McGinley noticed. "Come with us, Mick," he said, and he motioned for me to join up with him and his friends.

  As I was walking up Mercer Street, I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder. I turned, and there was my dad. "Great game," he said, his smile wide.

  ***

  At the pizza place, I sat with McGinley and a couple of other second-stringers. They'd hardly played, but they were still flying—talking loud and eating fast. I tried to get caught up in their excitement. Maybe I could have, if it hadn't been for Drew. He was with DeShawn and Middleton and Jones, but he might as well have been by himself. Every time I glanced over, he was looking straight ahead, his face expressionless.

  A little before midnight, DeShawn banged his knife against his glass. "Let's hear it for our touchdown machine! Let's hear it for Mick!" The guys started hollering.

  Then Middleton jumped on a chair. "Let's hear it for our coach!" he screamed, and the hollering went up another notch. After that, a bunch of different guys called out other people's names until finally one of the assistant coaches shouted: "Let's hear it for everybody!"

  The pizza guys stopped bringing out new pizzas and started cleaning up. "Party's over," Carlson said.

  I stood up, shook a few people's hands, and then headed back to the school parking lot where I'd left the Jeep. I thought about offering a ride to Drew or McGinley or somebody, but I wanted to be alone. They'd all managed to get there w
ithout me; they'd find a way home.

  Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the driveway. The house was dark. I opened the front door and quietly walked upstairs, careful not to wake up my mom or dad. Up in my room, I opened the duffel. I wanted to get the syringe and the XTR back into the safety of my closet. I fumbled around, feeling for the stuff, but I couldn't find it. I flicked the light on and dumped everything out.

  No vial. No syringe. No needle.

  That's when my cell phone rang.

  16

  It was Drew, just as I knew it would be. "We've got to talk," he said.

  "I'll pick you up in five minutes," I said. "Be in front of your house."

  I closed the phone. My head started spinning, the ground seemed to open underneath my feet, and all of a sudden I could feel myself starting to fall.

  I closed my eyes to calm myself. Then I pulled my shoes on and put on a black jacket. I'd started down the stairs when I stopped. I turned around, went back upstairs into the computer room and over to the bookcase. Bottom shelf. Far left. I fumbled around for a minute or two, and then I had it.

  It was after one in the morning. There was a car here and there on the road, but most of the world seemed asleep. When I turned onto Drew's street, I spotted him under a streetlight in front of his house. I pulled up and opened the door for him. "Your parents know you're meeting me?" I asked as he slipped in next to me. My voice sounded wrong to me, like someone else's voice.

  "Be real, Mick."

  I drove down to Golden Gardens Park. The police always lock the main gate at eleven-thirty, so I pulled into the overflow parking lot. You can get to the beach through the tunnel from there. "Let's go down by the ponds," I said.

  We walked in the silent darkness past the green fields that led to the two ponds just above the beach. It wasn't until we'd reached them and were leaning on the railing and looking out over one of the ponds that he spoke. "You're using steroids, right? The syringe and all that."

  "Yeah, I'm using steroids."

  He shook his head. "Why? That stuff causes cancer and liver damage and all sorts of other weird crap, and you know it."

  "I use steroids because I have to," I said, saying out loud what I'd never before been able to admit, not even to myself. "I use them because without them I'm not good enough."

  He shook his head and snorted in disgust. "You're plenty good enough. But now this whole season, everything we supposedly did, it's all ruined. You cheated, Mick. You were the main man, and you flat-out cheated. We don't belong in the playoffs; we didn't win a thing."

  We stared out at the water for a long time. "What are you planning to do?" I said at last.

  "The only thing I can do. I'm going to Carlson."

  "Don't do it, Drew."

  He turned toward me. The anger vanished from his voice. "Mick, you need help. Carlson's been around. He's a good guy. He'll know the right thing to do. About you, about the season, about everything."

  I had no chances left. Everything was going to end. This year, next year. Forever. I was falling fast and I had to grab hold of something, anything, to stop the fall. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the metallic coldness of the gun. "You can't go to Carlson," I said, my voice as icy as the revolver. "You can't tell him. You can't tell anybody."

  "Mick, I've got to be able to look myself in the mirror. I'm letting you know now because I don't want you to think I went behind your back. You can talk forever, but nothing is going to change my mind."

  He started back along the path to the parking lot. My head was pounding as if my skull weren't large enough to hold my brain. I took a couple of quick steps toward him and then called his name. "Drew. Stop."

  He turned back.

  I pulled out the revolver and pointed it at him.

  He peered through the darkness at me. "What is that, Mick?" he said. "Is that a gun? Are you going to shoot me?"

  I let my hand drop to my side. "Just promise me you'll keep your mouth shut and nothing will happen."

  "Are you going to shoot me and throw my body into this little duck pond? Is that your solution?"

  "Promise me, Drew."

  "Look at yourself. Look what the stuff has done to you."

  "Promise me."

  He turned and started walking again. I raised the gun and pointed it at him. "Stop!" I yelled.

  But he didn't stop. I aimed, and then aimed again, but I couldn't pull the trigger.

  Then, in a flash, I knew why I gone back upstairs for the gun. It had never been to shoot Drew. A strange sort of peace came over me, the same peace I'd felt when I'd thought about swimming out into the black water. The anger went away. The fear went away. I put the revolver to my temple, felt the coldness of the muzzle there, took a deep breath, took another one, and pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  EPILOGUE

  1

  You wouldn't think it would take much skill to shoot yourself in the head, but I didn't even do that right. I must have jerked the barrel upward just as I'd done those first few times at the gun range. Instead of crashing into my brain, all the bullet did was tear off part of my scalp and burn lots of my hair. I bled all over the place, but I didn't die.

  Drew carried me to the Jeep and drove me to Ballard Hospital, or so they tell me. I remember coming to the next morning and finding myself in a strange room, my head wrapped in bandages, an IV in my arm, my mom asleep in a chair by my bed, my dad sitting on the floor, his forehead resting on his knees. As I was looking down at him, he raised his head and our eyes caught. "Hey, Mick," he said.

  That woke my mother and she turned toward me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face looked old.

  "Hi, Mom," I whispered.

  She stood and leaned forward, put her face next to mine, and kissed me on the cheek.

  I looked again to my father. He looked down at the floor, then stood and came over to the other side of the bed. He took my hand, his grip tight. "You feeling all right?" he asked.

  "I'm okay."

  "You should have come to us, Mick. To me or to your mom. You're not alone in this world. You've never been alone, and you never will be—not as long as either of us is alive."

  My chest tightened. I was on the verge of sobbing, but I fought back the tears. There's no crying in football. That's what he'd said to me in the backyard all those years ago, and—crazy as it seems—those were the words that came to me then.

  "I'm sorry," I managed.

  My mom reached down and squeezed my hand. She forced herself to smile. "Everything's going to be okay. I know it's hard for you to believe, but it's true. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but you'll get through this. We'll be here to help, every step of the way."

  She looked at me then, her eyes expectant. She was waiting for me to say something, but no words seemed right. Just then a nurse looked in. "Is he awake?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer she disappeared down a hallway.

  A few minutes later a doctor came in, asked me questions, and shined a light in each eye. "He may lose a little hearing in his right ear," he told my parents, "but even that's not definite." Then he looked to me. "You're a very lucky young man."

  After he left, my mom and dad sat, each on one side of me. We talked about the room and we talked about the hospital and we talked about the doctor. We talked about everything except what I had done and what was going to happen next.

  A woman brought me breakfast and a nurse took my temperature and adjusted the IV. After that, my mom and dad went down to the cafeteria. "We'll give you some time to rest," my mom said as they left.

  When they were with me, I'd thought that I wanted to be alone. Once they were gone, I wanted them back. I lowered the bed and closed my eyes, but that was no good. So then I raised the bed and looked out into the corridor, watching the nurses walk this way and that, seeing patients wheeled in and out.

  After an hour or so, my mom and dad returned. They told me about their breakfast and a vending machine that was jammed. "A policeman will be comin
g later," my dad said after a long silence. "He'll be asking you questions about last night. When he comes, your mom and I are going to leave. Tell him everything, Mick. Don't hold back."

  Once he said that, they talked about a vacation in San Diego over Christmas. "A little sun and warm weather would be good for us," my mother said. Then they discussed other places we might go instead—Arizona or Florida or even Hawaii. As they talked, I kept looking into the corridor, awaiting the policeman. But when he finally showed, I barely noticed him. I'd imagined someone big, in uniform, gun dangling at his hip. Instead, the policeman was a slender Asian man, about fifty. "I'm Lee Ikeda," he said. "Seattle Police."

  He shook my dad's hand, then my mom's, and then nodded toward me. They talked some about the hospital, and as they spoke I felt my throat tightening and a dizziness coming over me. "I'd like to speak to Mick alone," he said at last. My mom came to the bed and kissed me again; my dad gave me a smile.

  Once they were gone, Mr. Ikeda took out a notepad and a pen. "I've just come from Popeye's," he said. "We've got Peter Volz nailed solid. So why don't you just tell me how all this happened?"

  I looked at him; I looked at the IV in my arm. I put my hand to my head and felt the bandages. I thought of my mom and my dad, of Drew and Coach Carlson, of Aaron Clark and Matt Drager. Everything that I'd been holding down came surging up, a tidal wave I couldn't stop.

  "I don't know how it happened," I whispered. "I don't know." Then I covered my face with my hands to hide my tears.