Necessary Roughness

by Marie G. Lee

  “Do you need help with anything?” I asked. Abogee snapped out of whatever trance he was in and regarded me.

  “Is all your homework done?”

  I nodded.

  “You can move some of those blocks to the back if you want.” He gestured to the door that went out the back. “There are some gloves on the hook over there.”

  I put on the white cotton gloves with rubber gripper dots, the kind of gloves that every Korean grocer uses. I would have liked to know how the blocks ended up in the middle of the floor in the first place, but Abogee didn’t look like he was in a storytelling mood.

  In a few minutes I was sweating too, but it felt good. My blood was totally pumping with the effort. I could always count on my body to rise to the occasion whenever I needed to lift, or kick, or hit.

  At one point I took a break. Abogee was watching me. When he saw me looking at him, he turned away.

  I wanted to ask him if he was worried. It didn’t make sense that we’d have to give up everything to run a store in some weird town where everyone was blond. The Extravaganza had been going great guns, but Young had been right. I’d overheard O-Ma mention something to Abogee about the low price we’d gotten for it because we needed to leave so quickly.

  How were we doing financially? That’s not exactly the kind of question you bring up in casual conversation.

  “That is enough for today,” Abogee said, after I dragged the last block out. His shoulders were bent, like he had an enormous weight pressing on them. “Thank you for your help.”

  How’re you doing, Abogee? The words were sitting right on my tongue, but at the last minute I swallowed them. Abogee would probably get angry if I asked, like I was questioning his authority, his Abogee-ness.

  I stepped over a crumpled box on the way out. I didn’t want to leave Abogee to worry all by himself, but I didn’t know what else to do.

  ten

  Call me a masochist, but I kept going to the gym to eat lunch. I liked it there, even though the other guys ignored me.

  I’d figured out their story. Almost all of them had Iron River football letter jackets, even the metalheads. They also acted like typical football players: talking loud, punching each other, saying “Duh” a lot.

  The biggest guy, the one who gave me the who-the-hell-are-you? Welcome Wagon treatment on the first day, was the biggest fool. His favorite trick was stomping hard on a full container of milk—which was great fun for all involved, except for the poor janitorial slob who would have to clean it up later. His buddy, the hyena boy, laughed uproariously at anything the Monster did. I hate guys like that.

  The ALL-PRO guy was about the only one who would directly stand up to Monster—and the Monster guy actually seemed to listen. Once, when ALL-PRO and I passed in the halls, he nodded to me. Or maybe that’s just the way he walked.

  In biology Mr. Minsky made us sign a card for some football player, Gary Lindstrom, who was in the hospital.

  At lunch I overheard the guys talking about his accident. Gary had just gotten his driver’s license, and on his maiden voyage he’d pulled a too-quick left onto the highway, right into the path of another car.

  Now, apparently, he was lying in a hospital bed with a concussion and both legs smashed up. A couple of the guys made jokes about him having sex with a nurse. But things were quieter, queasier, than they were normally.

  “Hey!” ALL-PRO yelled across the gym, toward the end of lunch.

  “Hey!” he yelled again. “Yo! Yo, kid!”

  I chewed my sandwich slowly. There was no mistaking who he was yelling at.

  “What?” I finally said.

  “C’mere.”

  All the guys were looking at me. What else was there to do? I walked over there, as if this were the showdown at the OK Corral.

  “Hey, kid.”

  “My name’s Chan,” I said. There was a sour taste in my mouth.

  “Chan. You play soccer, am I right?”

  I shrugged.

  “I saw you playing out in your yard once,” ALL-PRO said. “Look, our kicker is out for the season. We need a guy to take his place. Think you might be able to kick a football?”

  “Why don’t you do it?” I said to him, looking at his Sambas. I mean, what kind of question was that? A soccer ball is nothing like a football, as any moron will tell you. Besides, the guy was a player already.

  ALL-PRO laughed, lifted up his feet like he was just now discovering he had them. “Are you talking about these? I got ’em on a trip to Minneapolis. I like how they look.”

  “We don’t have soccer up here,” growled Monster. “Soccer is for fags.”

  “Fine,” I said. And football was for overfed idiots. I had no idea what the purpose of this conversation was, anyway. I turned around and made for the exit.

  “No, wait!” ALL-PRO jumped off the benches and trotted up to me, keeping pace.

  “I’m Mikko,” he said.

  “What kind of name is that?” I couldn’t help saying. “It sounds Japanese.”

  He frowned. “What kind of name is Chan? It sounds stupid.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay. It’s Finnish. Lucky for me—my mom’s Swedish and she wanted to name me Olaf.”

  I laughed, despite myself. “Mine’s Korean.”

  We kept walking together. In fact, we passed Young, who beamed at me, probably thinking I had found a friend.

  “Why don’t you try out? I think you’d be good.”

  “Yeah, I can tell how much you want me for your team by the way you treat me so nice at lunch.”

  He gave me this puzzled look, like maybe he didn’t get it.

  “Aw, come on,” he said after a minute. “It always takes time for new guys.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not interested, comprendes?”

  ALL-PRO kept trotting alongside me.

  “But you’re interested in playing something, aren’t you? There aren’t a lot of sports to pick from here. Most guys I know would kill to get a shot at a varsity spot on the football team.”

  I nodded, as if I really cared. I opened my locker and started gathering up my books.

  “The guys on the team are good guys. I mean, some of them can be jerks, but they’re mostly okay.”

  I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone here.

  “What’s in it for me?” I said finally.

  He gave me a look. “Well, if you play anything, you know what the reward is. It’s playing. Doesn’t hurt with the chicks, either.”

  Chicks. Where were these people from—the seventies? Young and I once asked Mrs. Knutson why she didn’t have an answering machine, and she said, “What’s an answering machine?” Iron River was the Town Time Forgot.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, just as I noticed that the halls were deserted. The bell rang, ALL-PRO didn’t move.

  My sense of the law was getting the better of me. “I think we’d better go.”

  “Hey, it’s no problem.” Mikko rooted around in his pockets until he produced a Pepto-Bismol-pink slip.

  “My dad’s the principal. Give this to the teacher, and she won’t hassle you.”

  By the time I looked up to say “Thanks,” ALL-PRO was already way down the hall, walking in his coiled-animal kind of way while looking as if he had all the time in the world.

  It was weird to think he was the closest thing I had to a friend here.

  eleven

  “He said you should come to practice,” ALL-PRO said, shadowing me after lunch. Jesus, he was persistent. He stayed with me all the way to my locker.

  “Who says what?” I gathered my books.

  “The coach. I got him to okay a late tryout,” ALL-PRO said impatiently. “Can you come today? I tried to call you last night, but I didn’t know your last name.”

  “It’s Kim,” I said. I tried to think of a fast way to get out of this. “I don’t have any gym clothes with me.”

  “You get the stuff issued,” ALL-PRO said. “Not to
worry.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say, which he seemed to take as a yes.

  He grinned and slapped my shoulder. “Meet you in the locker room after school.”

  The bell rang. My last class was over. I thought about what there was to do at home. Nothing. Not even homework. The show on Oprah was going to be on people who remarry their ex-spouses.

  So I called home and told O-Ma I’d be staying late for a school activity. Then I headed to the locker room.

  There were two doors. One said VARSITY, the other, JUNIOR VARSITY. I stood there for a second, then pushed open the VARSITY door. What the hell.

  Both doors led into the same room.

  It was like entering a beehive. Guys were busy suiting up, taping things. Pads lay like discarded insect parts all over the floor. No one looked up when I came in.

  “You Jann Kim?” asked a man with a military bearing and a shiny whistle around his neck. He looked like the kind of guy who didn’t like to be corrected. So I didn’t.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Mike Thorson. Head coach.” He extended his hand and shook hard, squeezing my fingers to Silly Putty. The guy was tan, almost Manuel’s natural color. But his blue eyes, pale as sea glass, gave away his background. Son of Thor.

  “Mikko Ripanen says you play soccer.”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He laid a paw on my shoulder. “As you probably know, our kicker is out of commission.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” His hand felt strange on my shoulder. It wasn’t something Abogee would do.

  “We’re glad you’re here, though,” Coach said. “What size are you, clothes and shoes?”

  He came back with an armload of pads, a helmet, cleats, and a uniform. He dumped everything on the bench just as ALL-PRO walked in, slapping me on the back and grinning a mile wide, like he’d just caught a fish or something.

  “Ripanen, an extra mile after practice. You can’t just breeze in anytime you want.”

  “Sorry, Coach, my stagecoach got a flat tire.” ALL-PRO winked at me. “Besides, you know I always do extra.”

  Coach growled, but he didn’t really seem mad.

  “Glad you made it,” ALL-PRO said as I studied the mess of stuff in front of me. “It’s our first full-pad workout today.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said knowingly. There were enough pads here to build another Chan. Or Jann.

  “Here,” he said, tossing me a gray T-shirt that was so worn, it was the consistency of spiderwebs. “This goes on first, to mop up the sweat and the stink.”

  ALL-PRO showed me how to put my hip and kidney pads into this kinky thing called a girdle. Sliding the tight football pants over that was like putting the casing on a sausage. Next came the shoulder and elbow pads and then a practice jersey over that.

  On our way out I caught a glance of myself, fully padded, in the mirror. For the first time in my life, I looked huge. As in HUGE. Then ALL-PRO came up from behind. Next to him I looked dorkily small again. I decided I needed to start lifting.

  “Come on, you dirtbags! You’re holding everyone up!”

  “That’s Kearny,” said ALL-PRO. “The assistant coach.”

  We trotted over to the rest of the guys. Monster and another guy were leading everyone in stretches. Half the guys couldn’t even touch their toes. Thanks to my tae kwon do training, I could push my palms to the grass.

  Kearny looked at me funny when he walked by, like maybe having excellent hamstrings wasn’t such a good thing for a football player. I don’t know.

  “M-I-N-E-R-S! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

  We did jumping jacks, which is no easy task when you’re wearing what feels like fifty pounds of equipment. Beads of sweat began to roll down my back.

  “Helmets on!” Coach barked, ALL-PRO helped me adjust the pads on mine. The strap made my chin itch. I felt like I was descending into a hot and sweaty bell.

  “Go to the dummy! Go to the dummy! Go to the dummy!”

  Everything echoed.

  The dummy, an upright punching bag mounted on a heavy base, bulged where it was patched messily with electrical tape.

  “Kill it!” Kearny commanded.

  A guy slammed into the dummy and pushed it all over the field. The next guy managed to keep pushing it at a run.

  “Faster! Harder! Push it!” Kearny screamed.

  My turn. I took a breath, ran, and crashed head-on into it. It barely budged.

  Was that a snicker back in the line?

  “What are you, a girl?” Kearny yelled. “Put some muscle behind it!”

  I backed up and charged again. Oof. My pads crunched into my shoulders as I pushed.

  “Run through it!” Kearny yelled. He yanked me aside. “Like this!” He smashed into it, without pads, and moved it a good ten feet.

  I tried again.

  “That’s better!”

  We did more drills, then we scrimmaged. The Mexican-looking guy, Monster’s friend, did the kickoff. I went in a couple times to play running back.

  Then Coach lined us up in the end zone, in two rows. He gave each of us a shield-size pad, just like the ones we used in tae kwon do to practice kicks.

  “We’re gonna let Ripanen run first, ’cause he’s the biggest wiseguy,” Kearny cackled. “A little bit of necessary roughness to cut that big mouth down a notch or two.”

  “Yah, you’re on!” ALL-PRO smirked, throwing his pad to the ground. Kearny picked it up.

  ALL-PRO backed up about thirty feet, a ball under his arm.

  “Ready, hosers?” he called.

  “You’re gonna die, you weeg,” said Monster.

  ALL-PRO just laughed.

  He came up fast in between the lines, like a bull running after a cape. Everyone leaned in to clobber him. He slowed but kept on driving. Then Kearny leaned in for a full body-blow; someone else smashed him on the head.

  ALL-PRO breathed heavily, grunted, but then broke free, still with the ball.

  “Nice try, losers,” he said, waving the ball at us. He grabbed a pad, vengeance in his eyes.

  “Next?”

  My turn. I rammed through, falling once, but didn’t lose the ball, as some of the others did. I managed to get out, practically crawling on all fours. Man, I wished I was as big as Monster. He just basically strolled through the lines as if he was taking his Sunday constitutional or something. No one came close to stopping him.

  “All right.” Coach looked at his watch. “Line up. We’re letting you off easy today.”

  “Sprints,” ALL-PRO explained to me as we were herded to the opposite end zone. “Coaches make us do this till someone pukes.”

  “No talking!” Coach yelled, his whistle clenched between his teeth. “I want you to sprint to the fifty, bearwalk back, four times. And quick. Anyone muck up, we start all over again.” The whistle screamed. We ran, then lumbered back on our hands and feet, butts high in the air (“No knees!” Kearny yelled at me) like very ungainly bears. My arms and legs were lead. Blood rushed to my head.

  “Faster! Quit lagging, Beargrease! Push it!” Sprint down, thirty push-ups, sprint back. “Do it, Janovich. Keep going!” Sprint down, fifty sit-ups, sprint back. “Come on, Leland! This isn’t afternoon tea!” Heat and blood filled my head. My abs burned as I convulsed like a pitiful bug on its back. Forty sit-ups to go, oxygen debt at its max.

  Ju keh ta, I found myself thinking. I’m going to die.

  Then I heard the noise—“hai-yaargh!”

  Monster, on all fours as if he was going to play horsie with a little kid, ejected about a bucket and a half of puke.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” Coach said. “Hit the showers.”

  “Man, Rom, what’d you have for lunch—rubber erasers?” said his buddy, bending over Monster, who was sitting there with his head between his knees. A few feet away his barf pooled in the grass. The ground refused to take it.

  “So how’d you like it?” ALL-PRO asked me.

  “It was okay.” Every muscle—including those in my e
yeballs—felt like it had been dipped in salt water and wrung out like beef jerky. It felt good in a bad way and vice versa, if you know what I mean.

  “How come I didn’t get to kick? I thought that’s why you wanted me.”

  “Uh-uh,” he said. “First, we need to see if you can take it, the football part. This is nine-man ball. Kicker has to do more than kick.”

  “So how’d I do?”

  Mikko paused and looked at me, as if he was trying to figure out what to say. Something grabbed my stomach. All of a sudden I wanted to hear him say he thought I could do it.

  He shrugged. “You obviously haven’t played football before.” He shrugged again. “You have a lot of work to do, learning plays and stuff like that. But I think you can take it.”

  I found myself grinning. That was enough.

  twelve

  The next day I was crippled. And I was happy as a clam. There’s something purifying about pushing your body to its limits and then just surrendering to the tiredness that fills in every crack. Even though I needed a wheelchair, my brain felt clearer than it had in ages, like it did after a hard tae kwon do workout or a tough soccer game.

  “Why are you walking so funny?” O-Ma asked as I helped get out the cereal and milk.

  “Getting old,” I said. Mrs. Knutson wandered into the kitchen in a furry pink robe, groping for coffee.

  Young ran down, her flute in hand.

  “I’m going to Donna’s house to practice flute after school,” she said, grabbing her lunch.

  “Donna is that girl from math class?” O-Ma called to her.

  “Yes!” Young said. Her voice faded as she flew out the door.

  “O-Ma, I think I’m going to stay after school again today.”

  “Chotta,” she said, which basically means fine and dandy. “What are you up to?”

  “Um, some kids are starting a club.” I wasn’t exactly sure why I didn’t want to tell her. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to jinx it.