by Kyell Gold
“Gena. She wants to talk to you.” He scratches his ear when I take the phone, looking puzzled, and then gets up from the couch. He hovers a little ways away while I lean against the couch arm.
“Lee?”
The strain in Gena’s voice comes through loud and clear, and my ears go down over the phone, which has the unintentional consequence of making it harder for Dev to overhear. “What’s wrong?”
“He hit Bradley,” she says. “Not hard, and they’ve roughhoused before, but…it was different.”
“Oh boy.”
“He said he had a headache when he got home, and then the boys were talking about how good he was in the game, and he said that Kerina was just a little bit better.”
It takes me a moment to remember that Fisher’s Highbourne team lost to Kerina the year before they won their first championship against those same Knights.
“And Bradley reminded him it was Crystal City, and Fisher got upset, and when Bradley told him to calm down, he smacked him in the chest. Junior got between them.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, wishing I could do more.
“Then he said he wanted to lie down and he fell asleep. I told the cubs he’s on pain medication, but I think they know something’s wrong. I don’t know who else I can talk to.”
“Dev and I wanted to come visit anyway,” I say. “Would that be okay?”
“Yes.” She replies so fast that I know she wanted to ask. “When can you come over?”
“Tomorrow?” She doesn’t say anything. “Dinner tonight?”
“I’ve got enough steaks,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” I say, remembering, “did you call Elmsley about it?”
“Who?”
“The guy with the Firebirds, said to call him if there were any troubles…”
She sounds more confused than upset now. “I thought that was Lake.”
“I got a call from an Elmsley who said he was taking over. Sorry, I didn’t know if you knew yet.”
“No.” Gena sighs. “I haven’t called anyone. It wasn’t that kind of trouble.”
“It sounds like it is,” I say. “What if he hits you next? Or what if things escalate?”
“I don’t want to think about that.” Her voice gets shakier and worse. “Please, I know Dev can help.”
I’m feeling uneasy about the whole thing, but I let it go for now. When I hang up, Dev waits while I just hold the phone. He reaches out to take it. “What’s wrong?”
So I take a breath. “I didn’t talk to you about this before,” I say, “because Gena asked me not to. But Fisher was behaving erratically after his injury, and she found some somatotropin in his room. That’s a hormone that’s usually used to aid recovery time.”
He goes really quiet then. “It’s not illegal, is it?”
I wiggle my paws. “It is, but he wouldn’t go to jail or anything. He’d get suspended by the league for sure. The thing is, it’s often used in conjunction with steroids. And Gena said Fisher’s been angrier, more touchy, ever since the injury.”
There’s a long silence. “Look,” I say, “I don’t want to know what you know about anything Fisher or anyone on the team is using. Hal doesn’t either. The story he’s working on is about injuries that accumulate over a career, not about banned substances.”
“I’m not using anything.”
I hadn’t even considered it, but the words trigger a blossom of relief in my chest. “Good.”
“Fisher isn’t—he wasn’t when he was with the team.”
“Dev—”
“No. I’m sure of it.” The words are clipped, hard.
“All right.” I don’t want to get into how easy it must be to sneak an injection here or there. I don’t want to speculate on whether the trainers might be complicit in it. I want to focus on us. “I just want to be clear, when we go over there, I’m not trying to dig up any steroid use or anything. We’re going to ask about his injuries for Hal, about his agent for you, and we’re going to let Gena know that we’re here for her, because she sounded like she really needed that.”
Dev backs down from his aggressive stance. “Do we have to ask him about his injuries?”
I weigh the question. “Not right away. But if he’s losing his grip on reality after two concussions in a month, then yeah, I think that’s something worth asking about.”
He sits back down on the couch next to me and stares down at his knees. His tail curls between us. “I never had a concussion,” he says finally. “I got hit in the head a couple times in high school. Never in college.”
I reach over to pat his knee. “Good.”
He turns then, his gold eyes meeting mine, and they’re calm, but the stripes around them are creased in thought or worry. “You think I might end up like Fisher? Not knowing where I am?”
“No,” I lie, and he puts an arm around me, and we hold each other.
4
Defiance (Dev)
The shit about Fisher really throws me for a loop. He was disoriented during the Boliat game, sure, but that was just a one-time thing. That evening, he was fine. I think. From what I remember, anyway, which isn’t a lot. He’d shaken it off, though, and he’d been fine until he got knocked down in the championship. Maybe it’s just the hangover from that close loss that’s got him riled up.
Lee didn’t tell me exactly what happened, just that Fisher didn’t seem to know what year it was, and that he hit Bradley. Which doesn’t sound like him. He loves those cubs. Though also he believes in discipline, so maybe it was just discipline, and Gena read it wrong.
Argh, I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know. As we’re getting ready to go over there, I form the words, “Why don’t you just go without me?” half a dozen times and never say them.
Because Fisher is my friend, and Lee is my boyfriend, and I’m not going to send him over to face Fisher alone. At least if I’m there, I know there’s someone on his side in a fight.
The ride over is quiet; we’re both tense, not knowing what we’re going to find. Lee navigates me to the address Gena gave us, a three-story house with a large yard, neighbors on either side.
Despite the fact that I’m sure Fisher’s made more than Gerrard over his career, his house is much more homey and inviting. Gerrard’s is like the dream house I wanted when I was ten, a sprawling mansion with enough room for three families and a whole raft of servants, with extra bedrooms and a backyard basketball court and a pool. Fisher might have a pool in the back, which I haven’t seen yet, but judging by the size of the houses around it, it’s not going to be Olympic-sized or anything.
Fisher Junior answers the door. He’s fifteen, if I recall, two years younger than Bradley, but he’s much more his father’s size. He can look me in the eye, although his shoulders aren’t quite as broad as Fisher’s, or even mine. “Mom!” he yells back into the house. “Dev’s here with Lee.”
He leaves the door to us and just walks back into the house, and then he stops halfway across the broad living room and turns back to me. “You played good,” he says. “You guys coulda won.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Your dad did great.”
I guess that wasn’t the right thing to say. His eyes slide away and then he turns, slouches to the couch, and picks up a video game controller. Basketball, I see: FBA ’09. Not football.
Gregory and I used to play video games: Hedgehog Adventures 2 was the one I remember best because it was the first one I could play as well as he did. Up til then, we’d play two-player games and mostly I tagged along with him while he solved the puzzles and fought the fights. In Hedgie, he kept getting killed while I was the one keeping us alive. And he lost interest in it. I finished it myself, without him, so proud of my accomplishment that I called him back to watch the ending movie with me. It was pretty fun then. My fists tighten now, remembering his silence watching the movie and the way he just left the room after, without even saying, “Good job,” or, “Cool.”
At the other end of the living room is
a bright doorway with white appliances and black granite counters. The smell of steak and butter and potatoes rolls out in waves toward us, and then Gena steps out, smiling. She holds out her paws and gives Lee a hug, and then does the same for me. “Thank you for coming. Dinner’s about a half hour away. Fisher’s in the den if you want to go talk to him.”
Lee and I exchange a look. “Can I help in the kitchen?” he says. “I’ll let the players talk for a while.”
“Sure.” Gena ushers him into the kitchen and then points me to the den. I cross behind the sofa where Junior is playing, pause by the end table to look at a photograph of the family at the Grand Canyon, and then walk to a large framed picture hanging on the wall beside the door to a short hallway.
The 1998 world champion Highbourne Rocs stare back out at me, all smiles. I pause and find Fisher in that picture. He looks a lot like Junior, but thicker and more filled out. How old was he then? That was ten years ago—they won the championship in January 1999—so he was close to my age. Of course, he was drafted after his sophomore year, so by ’98 he had four years of experience, not my two. Or, really, two thirds of one year, if you’re only going to count starting.
In the hallway, the door to the den is partly open. Everything is so still that I can hear the noise of the video game from the living room clearly. So I tap at the door and step into a room with a small liquor cabinet to one side and a bookshelf full of model trains on the other, a room that carries an undertone of locker room smell. I suspect Gena isn’t allowed to clean in here often.
Fisher’s sitting behind a large wooden desk staring down at one of the side bottom drawers, but he looks up as soon as I spot him. His whiskers twitch and he slides the drawer shut easily. Silhouetted against the window and the stark branches outside, he cuts an imposing figure. So do I, I remind myself. I examine him casually, looking for any evidence of the steroids Lee suspects. Does he look bigger than in the championship picture? Bigger than at the beginning of the season? He looks bigger than Junior, and I remember thinking that during the Christmas party, but that was just a month ago. How quickly do effects show up?
Fisher gestures to the armchairs in front of the desk. “Gena told me you were coming. Want to talk about the game, I guess?”
“Yeah, a little.” I sit in one of the leather-upholstered chairs and keep my claws carefully retracted, though it feels like the leather is treated. “Also wanted to ask you about your agent.”
His ears perk in surprise. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
“I need a new agent. Is he any good?”
“He’s great.” Fisher goes on to tell me about some of the deals his agent got him, and I listen pretty attentively, but I’m also trying to figure out how to ask him about his injury, how he’s feeling, and…maybe, if I get the chance, whether he’d be willing to talk about it.
“Cool,” I say when he finishes talking about his agent. “I think I have his contact info, but can you give it to me? I’ll call him up.”
He pulls open the shallow central drawer and comes out with a business card, starts to copy it on a piece of paper, and then just pushes it across the desk with a wave. “Take it, I got his number in my phone anyway.”
I pick up the card and glance at it before tucking it away in my pocket, and then I look at it again. “Lee was right. His name’s Damian.”
“It’s Leroy,” Fisher says absently.
I show him the card. “Says Damian here.”
“Oh.” He squints. “That’s right. Leroy was my agent before…No, it’s Damian. He’s great.”
He’s tense; I can see that. So I start talking about the championship game, about how we couldn’t hold their offense when we needed to. “We held them plenty,” he says. “If we play that game ten times, we win five of them. At least four.”
“I’d settle for one more.” I lean back in the chair and look at the model trains across the room. My tail flicks.
“Next year.” He sets a huge paw on his desk and stares down at it. “Next year.”
He’s not wearing his championship rings. They’re in a large display case to the right of his desk, along with pictures of him holding the ’98 and ’99 championship trophies. “You guys got to the game the year before you won it, right?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t need to look around. “Kerina was loaded that year. We couldn’t do anything against ’em. They lost Krapinski next year and Jones was hurt and Trig and Lombar just had lousy years. Didn’t even get back to the championship game.” He flexes the paw on the desk. “Wouldn’t have mattered. Nobody could touch us that year.”
“You think Chevali’ll get better next year?”
He looks up, and exhales. “You’ll be better,” he says. “Gerrard…maybe. Those corners need to tighten up some, but maybe that Colin kid will be ready for prime time. We need someone who can give Aston time to throw, and need to keep that fuckin’ cheetah around.”
“He’s not that bad once you understand him.”
“I understand him.” Fisher glares down at his desk. “Doesn’t give a shit about football except as a way to make money for himself.”
Strike would probably say that we’re all in it for the money, but I can’t think that about Fisher, sitting hunched over his desk with his two championships in the past and that burning in his heart to get just one more, to go out on top, to be a winner. I shift in the chair, thinking again about all the things I could have done differently, how if I could have stopped the Sabretooths just one more time, we’d be having a much different conversation. Fisher might be thinking about retirement.
“How do you feel?” I ask, because my thoughts are going in that direction anyway and because I’m trying to come around to helping Lee. I guess it’s really helping Hal, but I won’t think of it like that until I talk to him myself.
Fisher just laughs, sharply. “How do you feel?” he counters.
“My ribs hurt, my legs hurt.” I hold up one paw. “This hurts. But I feel pretty good overall. How’s your leg?”
“You’re young.” He snorts. “My leg’s fine. I…” He lifts his head, looking at the door behind me, and then shakes his head slowly. “I’m fine. I feel five years younger. I can squeeze another year or two out of the uniform before I have to hang it up.”
I flex my claws, wondering how to go on, if I even want to go on at this point. “You were kinda groggy after the game,” I say.
His head snaps up. “Yeah. I got my bell rung. I shook it off, I’m fine now.”
He’s louder, and when I glance down at his paw, I see claws digging into the scarred wood of the desk. “Okay,” I say. “Just checking. I mean, uh, I was pretty down on Monday.”
“Yeah, that happens. Takes at least a couple weeks to shake off a big loss like that. Months, years for some guys.” His claws retract and he looks my way again. “You seem better now.”
I nod and flick my tail. “Talking to Lee helped.” Hell, just being close to Lee again helped. “And Polecki, actually. He’s a good guy and you know, much as I’d rather be in his place, I was happy for him too.”
“Happy for him.” He levels a finger at me. “Goddamn kids. You don’t get happy for the other team. You get jealous; you get angry. You get so worked up that you can’t wait to get back to camp for the chance to be where they are. You drive yourself until you think you’re going to break, only you don’t break. You make it the next year, or the year after.”
“Or both,” I say, looking at his trophies, because I don’t want to start another argument by telling him what a great guy the coyote was, how his brilliant smile made it easy to like him, how his casual acceptance of being gay put me at ease. How we posed for a photo outside the café and laughed when the picture-taker asked if we were dating.
“Yeah, or both!” My tactic doesn’t seem to have worked. He’s just getting more agitated; he picks up a pen and plays with it. “You think we’ll be able to beat Kerina next year if we sit here thinking about how happy we are for t
hem?”
I don’t want to point out that he’s just said “Kerina” instead of “Crystal City.” It’s an easy mistake, except that it’s really not. He’s just emotional, I think, and so I say, “That’s not what I meant, Fish.”
“Then say what you goddamn mean,” he says.
Damned if I can think of anything to say to that. I stand up and raise a paw to him. “I’m gonna see how Lee’s doing.”
“Hey!”
As I half-turn, something hits me on the shoulder. Did he just throw a pen at me? Yep, there it is on the floor of the den. I pick it up and stalk forward to the desk, tail lashing, where I brandish it at him. “What the fuck is this?”
He stands too, facing me across the wood. “Don’t walk out on me. I’m tryin’ to tell you something important.”
“Then say it!” I drop the pen between us with a thunk.
“I said it.” He’s a foot from me, and we’re both breathing hard. “I said it. You just…”
He flinches and puts a paw to his temple, and then he sits down in the chair. I lean forward. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he growls. “Get the fuck out.”
First he doesn’t want me to leave, now he does? I turn and stride to the door, out to the hall, and into the living room. Junior’s still playing basketball, so I watch him for a few minutes, trying not to worry about Fisher.
He’s always been volatile and passionate. He’s getting toward the end of his career and he knows it, and he doesn’t want to leave anything on the field.
Hah. That’s what Strike told me on the phone the last time I talked to him. Fisher’d be annoyed if he knew how similar the two of them really are, which is almost enough to make me go back into the den and tell him that. But I don’t want to goad him, especially if he is still suffering from a concussion, and that paw to his temple worries me. So I go into the kitchen, where Lee and Gena are talking about cookie recipes.
“Dev likes chocolate chip,” Lee says when he sees me.
I walk over and put an arm around him. The phrase is casual and really means nothing, but it makes me happy because after the conversation with Fisher, it’s normal and friendly and intimate, and it reminds me of the other world I’m part of. “Love it,” I say, partly in response to him.
