by Rex Bolt
They were in the lobby of the theater. Cathy held Pike’s hand and looked around. “Did you know I’m adopted?” she said softly.
“Jeez … no … No way.”
“It’s a secret. Please don’t tell anyone … You’re the first person that knows, outside of my family.”
Pike was pretty floored.
First that she was adopted, especially considering she looked an awful lot like her mom.
But second, that she confided this to him. Above anyone else apparently.
He didn’t say anything until they were in the car.
“Not even any girlfriends?” he said.
“Nope … It never seemed natural, to tell anyone … Or necessary.”
“So … it was necessary to tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I’m glad I did.”
“Well, I’m not sure what to say.”
“You don’t have to … Wow, what’s wrong with me? I’m sorry if I threw that all in your lap just now. You didn’t ask me to.”
“Nah, that’s fine,” Pike said. “Listen, I’ve got something to tell you too … Maybe.”
“Gosh,” Cathy said. “Now I’m scared. That it’s about us.”
“It’s not. There’s something else going on. I’m not sure if you need to know … or if knowing could screw anything up … I think it probably would.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” Cathy said. “A mystery man then … I’m taking a chance asking you this, but Pike … have you been this close to anyone before? I mean a girl?”
“I haven’t,” Pike lied, and he put his arm around her. He thought he was in love with Becky Ottinger sophomore year. Her family moved away that summer. He still missed her.
But Cathy was looking up at him and he knew she wasn’t thinking about anything else, or anyone else, and at this moment he was proud to be with her, and deep down he knew he was very lucky.
“Give me a little time,” he said. “Let me think it through.”
“If I told you I’m here for you, what that mean anything?”
“Not sure.”
“Because I am,” she said.
Chapter 4 Spin
Pocatello, Idaho
May26th, 2016
Dani Andriessen waved to the parent as she made sure the last child was safely picked up, and she went into the teacher lounge.
Two weeks to go, and her first full year as a kindergarten teacher would be over. She loved it on the one hand, but there were all kinds of pressures, regulations, curriculums you had to follow. They were a major distraction, and she could see how over time they could beat you down. For her it was all about witnessing the children’s little joys and discoveries, and she hoped she could keep it that way.
Dani was done for the day except for a prep period which was optional. What she didn’t want to do was go home.
Last night had been an ugly scene. She regretted it, but she knew it had to happen sooner or later.
Marcus had been drinking, but what else was new? He’d been out with his friends from ISU, the same stupid friends he had going back to the freshmen dorms, and now they’d all either graduated or dropped out but either way were in the adult rat-race now, working one job or another around town.
Couldn’t you just grow up and move on from that crowd?
But no, they have their place over on 5th Street, the brewpub by the railroad tracks that someone converted from an old brick warehouse, and Marcus would come home with a buzz on, and now and then would be blitzed out of his friggin mind.
Like last night.
It was 7:30 and he came storming in and wanted to go to bed right away. Dani was on the couch with her knees folded up under her, making notes for tomorrow’s class.
“C’mon Babe,” Marcus said. He was smiling but it was a sneer-smile, and his eyes were narrow.
“Sorry,” Dani said, “but your manner, the whole situation, you just took all the spark out of it, to be honest.”
“Is that right … You know something?” He was holding onto her shoulder.
“Okay please hon,” she said. “Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll fix you something to eat. Things’ll look rosier tomorrow.”
Marcus started laughing. “Too far off,” he said. “Truth of the matter, you look pretty rosy right now.”
He pushed her sideways and she was on her back on the couch and her laptop went skittering to the floor. He grabbed both shoulders, began lowering himself on her and reached down and undid the top button of her jeans.
She could smell his alcohol breath, stale, with a hint of garlic.
With her left hand, Dani let go a little backhand slap like she was flicking a crumb off a table.
She caught Marcus across the bridge of the nose and she could see his eyes roll up and he hung suspended there for a moment, and then collapsed to the floor with an alarmingly loud thud.
Dani’s first thought was I killed him, didn’t I? Her mind was racing. How on earth do I explain it. Should I call a lawyer right now. Should I get in the car and start driving and never look back.
Marcus began to groan, very softly, but at least he was making noise, thank God. After a few minutes he started to move his arms a little.
Dani helped him sit up against the couch. “Would some water help?” she said.
Marcus was rubbing one eye now like he was waking up first thing in the morning. “What the heck just happened?” he said.
This might be okay after all. “Hon,” she said, “you had too much to drink and you fell off the couch.”
“Oh.”
Dani went in the kitchen and got him some ice for his nose. She said, “So please don’t do that again … Okay?”
“Say what now?” Marcus said.
He was slurring his words, probably from all the alcohol rocking around. But Dani realized with concern, but with some satisfaction too, that he may very well be dealing with a concussion.
“Don’t fall off things and get hurt anymore, is what I’m saying,” she said. “The easiest way to prevent that, is lose your idiot friends and come home after work.”
“Ah … now I see where you’re going,” he said, standing up shaky and working his way over to the recliner and turning on the TV.
“So please …?” she said.
“Damn straight,” he said, turning up the volume loud, locked in on something with people shooting at each other. “In fact next time I’ll shove it up your tight little entitled rear end.” He let out a hoot.
Dani got her jacket and went for a walk. Marcus was deep down an okay guy, she was convinced, except for the drinking part. He put her first, and they laughed a lot and had fun together. If only the day ended at 5 o’clock.
That said … In a perfect world, I wonder if I would have the guts to put my hand on his neck … and squeeze … There would be some crackling sounds, probably … Picturing it … But that would take care of it, wouldn’t it?
She passed Hank’s Henny-Penny coffee shop on Centre Street. A man and woman were sitting in a front booth, looking to be in serious conversation. The man reached across the table and took the woman’s hand, and she let him do it, but there was an element of caution there.
Dani was embarrassed now, that she’d considered, even hypothetically, doing something crazy like that to Marcus. The positive from tonight, if there could be one, was luckily she hadn’t revealed her strength. She knew she needed to keep it that way.
It had been close to a year. The date was June 30th, 2015. she wouldn’t be able to forget it. She had finished her student teaching and gotten her Master’s in May, and now it was a question of scrambling over the summer to land a job.
She was taking lifeguard shifts at the pool at the student rec center to make a few extra dollars. Meanwhile her friend Kaila kept talking about these spin classes she was taking, how the positive endorphins gave you a natural high and lasted for hours after.
So one evening
after her shift, specifically on that last day of June, a Tuesday, Dani looked in on one that was taking place in a side room next to the main basketball court. The class was going full throttle, a fit-looking guy with long hair and a backwards baseball cap was up front, directing things through a little microphone that was pinned to his t-shirt.
He saw Dani standing there and took a hand off his handlebars and smiled and waved for her to try it. She found a bike, adjusted the seat as best she could and started in. There was music with an insistent beat, and three big-screen TVs spaced around the room that all had someone bicycling a scenic course that looked like it was in the Alps.
It felt pretty easy, honestly, so Dani turned the knob that upped the intensity level but nothing really changed. She took a look around, and people were sweating heavily and some were gritting their teeth and struggling. Of course they’d been there longer, she’d just showed up 10 minutes ago.
The director up front yelled for everyone to push it, blast was the word he used, that it was 600 yards to the summit and who would be first?
Dani reacted to his command and got her legs really churning now, she was pretty sure they were going faster, in fact much faster, than anyone in the class. There wasn’t much to it, maybe a tad more effort than when she was warming up, but still a piece of cake.
Someone behind her yelled out, “Ho-ly Mackerel!”
The girl to Dani’s left slowed up and said something that was drowned out by the music. Dani swung her head around, scared that heaven forbid somebody was having a medical problem. As she turned, the smoke coming off her front wheel got up into her face.
She immediately stopped pedalling, and then there was the smell, like the burnt rubber she remembered as a little girl from her dad’s clutch car, the Plymouth, with the stick shift up by the steering wheel.
The guy in charge told everyone to take five, and he got off his bike and stopped the music.
Dani felt like the center of attention in the worst way, like she’d gotten her period for the first time in public.
The director came back to her and made a joke, that she wasn’t supposed to take him quite that seriously when he’d told them to crank it to the summit. Meanwhile he checked out her bike, told her these things sometimes act up, and if she didn’t mind, to finish it off on a different one.
The guy’d played it like it was no big deal, but at the same time he seemed shocked by what had just happened. Though maybe that was just her, projecting.
Dani got on another bike and pedaled very gently, and the spin class ended.
When everyone left, she went back in the room, which was all dark now, and picked a bike at random and started pedalling again, first normally, then a little faster … Then pushing it.
Pretty quickly the smoke came billowing up, and she felt herself gagging, not so much from the smoke itself but from the massive, stunning uneasiness that was pulsating through her entire body.
Walking like a confused zombie out of that spin room, she wondered, What in God’s name was going on here?
Now, back in her little teacher’s cubicle after school, nearly a year later, she didn’t have any answers.
All she knew was, there were plenty of hours left in the day, and she prayed there wouldn’t be another scene with Marcus like last night, but unfortunately one never knew.
Chapter 5 No Clue
At the start of practice on Monday, before the official whistle blew, Pike was throwing the ball around with Marty Clarke.
“Dang, dude, your arm got better,” Clarke said.
Pike always had trouble throwing a football very well. The ball never came out of his hand right and it didn’t go where he wanted it to. The whole thing without much zip.
Now it felt effortless. Cocking the hand behind the ear and casually flicking it forward, and the ball rocketing out of there with a razor tight spiral and hitting Clarke 15 yards away right on the numbers.
Coach Geddes saw what was going on and came over. “Hey now, let’s try something,” he said.
He had Amos Stillman line up on the hash mark at the 40. Stillman was their best receiver. Coach had him run down-and-outs, slants and post patterns, while Pike dropped back from an imaginary center and threw to him.
Pike was completing everything, all over the field. After about a dozen throws he realized the whole team was watching now. There were a few oohs and ahs at first, and then everyone started getting pretty quiet, like what the hell was going on here.
Pike decided he better miss a few, and let one flutter off his hands and threw another short.
Coach blew the whistle and everyone began their drills, and that was that.
As he was leaving the gym after practice, Coach grabbed him and said, “See you a minute in the office?”
Coach wore an old fashioned grey sweatshirt to practice with a whistle and stopwatch around his neck. He had a big gut, and Pike pictured him eating ice cream out of the container watching TV.
“Gonna give you reps this week,” Coach said. “Quarterback position’s been shaky as you know … You good with that?”
Pike had always wanted to play quarterback and said he was.
“Seen a lot of positive changes in you son. Just this week.” Coach gave him a long look, direct, and Pike had a terrible realization that not sure how, but he knows.
But Coach said, “‘Course I’ve seen it occur. Kids like you, suddenly they become men their senior year. It can happen overnight.”
“I don’t feel any different than the Bishop game, honestly,” Pike lied.
“I hear ya. You’ve always had talent. Just good to see it coming together at the right time.” Coach turned off the light and locked the office. “Get your rest, son. Opportunity like this, comes around once. You kids have no clue, but next fall, when you’re out in the world, it’s all been yanked away. Just like that.”
He snapped his fingers, stared at Pike hard again for a second, and left the gym.
Chapter 6 Front End
Wednesday night Pike’s mom asked if he would go to CVS and pick up some pictures that she had developed. He couldn’t understand why she still did it the old-fashioned way, instead of using the computer, but he didn’t mind going.
Pike avoided stores like CVS but once he was there he liked browsing the aisles. They did have some good deals, if you actually needed the stuff, which he guessed most people didn’t.
He was looking at the shaving section when there was some commotion up front. An older woman was yelling in a high pitch and a manager came running out of a glassed in cubicle. Pike saw a flash of someone in a brown jacket racing out the door.
“Stop him!” the manager yelled out into the parking lot.
Pike ran out there past the manager and saw the brown-jacket guy getting into a beat-up Honda and trying to floor it out of the parking lot. The guy obviously wanted to turn onto Jamison Parkway and get lost from there, but there was one car in front of him, waiting to turn first.
Pike got between the two cars and without thinking about it, just sort of instinctively reached down under the brown jacket guy’s bumper and lifted the front of the vehicle a couple inches off the ground.
The guy put it in reverse and revved the engine but nothing happened. He opened the door and yelled at Pike and shook his fist. Finally he got out of the car and charged him. Pike let the car down and turned and met the guy.
Pike let him get close and then slapped a bear hug on him. He heard a couple of ribs cracking and the guy doubled over and and crumpled to the ground.
“That was amazing, thank you so much,” the manager said as they waited for the police. “What’d you do exactly? With the front of the man’s vehicle?”
Pike prayed the no one had gotten a good look at him hoisting it up. “All’s I did,” he said, “I stood there. Was pretty sure he wouldn’t run me over.” He tried to laugh but it didn’t really come out right.
“Well that was resourceful
of you,” the manager said. “Because it worked. But it took some moxie.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I just reacted,” Pike said.
The two policeman who showed up weren’t in the mood to ask too many questions, luckily, as they knew the brown jacket guy and had trouble with him before. They took Pike’s name but that was about it.
Word got around though and a few hours later some stuff ended up on Facebook, and by the next day at school it was a topic. Mr. McMillan in History asked him to stand up and talk about his heroics. Pike left out the whole in-front-of-the-car part and downplayed the rest of it, saying simply that the guy ran right into him and all he did was wrap him up, same as most anyone else would have done, at least anyone who played some football.
After lunch, when he stopped at his locker Pike got visited by a few girls who were apparently impressed and wanted to know more. He had to admit, he enjoyed the attention, though in the middle of it he saw Cathy down the hall, pretending not to, but looking in his direction.
Chapter 7 Drive In
Friday night Hamilton travelled to play Starling over in Oxman.
What the deal was, according to Coach Geddes in an announcement on the bus that went too long and had guys getting restless and squirming around, was Foxe would start at QB like normal and then depending how it went, Pike might come in.
It didn’t take long. Starling had a running back who’d jumped onto the radar of college recruiters, and he took the opening kickoff back all the way and added a 45-yard touchdown run, almost before everyone was in their seats.
If Pike was back in there on defense the result might have been different, but Coach had a policy of his quarterbacks only playing offense, to keep them fresh and focused, and Pike was cool with that, and in way relieved that he wouldn’t be hurting another guy.
Meanwhile, Hamilton couldn’t move the ball. Coach told Pike to get ready, and he started throwing to Biff Watson behind the bench, lobbing it over there easy at first, and then starting to let it fly. He signaled to Watson that was enough, and he told Coach he was ready, and next series Coach stuck him in.
