Tangerine

by Edward Bloor

  Erik stopped, his rhythm broken. I could see that his nose was pushed over to one side. He tried to ignore my interruption. He poked the bat at me. "We'll decide what's going to happen to you."

  "We'll decide."

  "Maybe you'll be in the right place, but maybe it'll be the wrong time."

  "Oh yeah. It'll be the wrong time."

  "And then it'll happen."

  I took another step forward. Now I could see swelling around Arthur's eyes. I said, "I've already been in the right place at the wrong time, you lowlife creeps. You pathetic losers. I was under the bleachers on Tuesday afternoon." I raised my finger like it was loaded, and I pointed it at Arthur. "I saw you kill Luis Cruz."

  Arthur's swollen eyes widened, and he took a step backward. Erik shot a quick look at him. Then he turned back to me. "Who's going to believe you, you blind little geek? You're blind! You can't see ten feet in front of you. Nobody's going to listen to you!"

  Erik stared at me with growing fury, with growing hatred, moving the bat in a tight circle. I could see that his eyes, too, were starting to swell closed.

  I ignored him. I continued to speak to Arthur. "And I'm not the only one who saw it."

  Erik snapped, "He's lying!"

  But Arthur had heard enough. He said, "Come on. Let's get outta here."

  Erik shouted, "He's lying! He's lying! He's lying!" Until he completely lost control. He started smashing the bat into the mud ruts in front of him, grunting with rage at every blow. Then he turned and unleashed a furious shot at the right headlight of the Land Cruiser. The glass exploded, sparks flew, and the light sputtered out.

  Arthur's voice was trembling, pleading, "Come on! Come on! Let's get outta here!"

  Erik was still in his rage. He was talking to Arthur Bauer, but he was staring at me when he roared, "Shut up, Castor!"

  Then, deep breath by deep breath, the rage started to recede. Erik backed up, step-by-step. He turned and threw the bat into the Land Cruiser. He got in, and Arthur got in, and they drove quickly away. They drove away leaving that name, Castor, hanging in the air like some horrible apparition, like the key to a lock, like the solution to an unsolved crime. I turned my head slowly back toward the wall, and I remembered something from long ago:

  A silver-gray wall.

  It surrounded a development called Silver Meadows, where we lived when I was four and five years old. I remembered Castor. Vincent Castor. He was Erik's goon back then. He followed Erik around and did whatever he was told.

  I remembered spray paint on that wall. Erik and Vincent Castor had found a can of white spray paint, and they had painted something on that gray wall. I don't even know what it was. I never did. I just knew that Erik and Vincent Castor had done it. All the kids in the development knew that. But I never told anybody about it.

  I remembered coming out to play in the morning and not being able to find any of my friends. Where were they? Did they know something? Did they know what was about to happen to me?

  I remembered walking into our garage and hearing Erik's voice, cold and menacing. He said, "You're going to have to pay for what you did."

  I said, "What? I didn't do anything."

  "You're going to have to pay for telling on Castor. You told who sprayed paint on the wall, and Castor got into trouble. Castor doesn't like getting into trouble."

  I turned around and saw Vincent Castor. He was holding a can of spray paint. Then I felt Erik grab me from behind, easily pinning both of my arms with just one of his. I could hear my voice crying, "I didn't tell! I didn't tell!"

  And I remembered Erik's fingers prying my eyelids open while Vincent Castor sprayed white paint into them. They left me screaming and rolling around on the floor of the garage. Mom came out and tried to drag me over to the hose to rinse out my eyes, but I fought like a wildcat. She managed to push me into the backseat of the car and drive me to the hospital.

  Somewhere around that time, so they say, there was an eclipse of the sun. I didn't remember that. But I remembered all the rest.

  I stood for a little while longer, until I was sure there was nothing else to remember. I climbed over the wall, hopped down, and crossed the yard to the back door. Mom and Dad were sitting on stools at the breakfast nook, looking at a yellow legal pad, when I walked in.

  They were ready to jump on me, no doubt about it. But I jumped first. I said to Mom, "Do you remember Vincent Castor? From Silver Meadows?" Mom and Dad looked at each other. There was no question about it. They remembered. "Do you remember him, Mom? Dad? He was the Arthur Bauer of his day."

  Mom turned deathly pale. She said, "What's this all about, Paul?"

  Dad tried to regain control. "Listen, there are questions that need to be answered about tonight."

  I exploded. "No! No, sir!" I yanked off my Coke-bottle glasses and shook them at him in a rage. "There are questions that need to be answered about these! Am I such a stupid idiot fool that I stared at a solar eclipse for an hour and blinded myself? Is that who I am? Am I that idiot?"

  They didn't answer. They didn't look at me. They didn't even seem to be breathing.

  Dad was looking down at the yellow legal pad when he said, "You were five years old, Paul. There was only so much you could understand. All you could understand was that something bad had happened."

  Mom spoke with her eyes closed, as if she weren't really there, as if she were coming in over the radio. "I was so terrified that you would be blind. But the news wasn't all bad. They told me that you would not be blind. They told me that your eyes would heal, slowly." Her eyes opened, but her voice started to fade away. "They told me that you might lose your peripheral vision. Or you might not. But you would not be blind. That was the good news." Then Mom started to cry. With her face still frozen, like a statue, she started to cry.

  I lowered my voice and said to her, "Let me ask you one thing, Mom. When you got home from the hospital that day, did you see the white paint on Erik's hands?"

  She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

  "Did you know what happened?"

  "Yes."

  No one spoke for a couple of minutes.

  Dad continued to examine the legal pad in front of him. Then he said, "The doctors told us that you might never remember. And we figured that that was the best way to handle the situation." He shook his head sadly. "We wanted to find a way to keep you from always hating your brother."

  I answered, "So you figured it would be better if I just hated myself?"

  That did it. Dad was finished. He broke down. It was frightening to see. He didn't cry like a statue, he cried like a baby. After a minute I left them sitting there, snuffling and feeling sorry for themselves, and I came upstairs.

  That brings me up to Joey's phone call asking me if I'm all right. I am all right. I'm more than all right. Finally.

  Saturday, December 2

  Joey was back on the phone with me at nine o'clock. He said, "Fisher? They haven't arrested you yet?"

  "No. Not yet."

  "Hey, doesn't Betty Bright have a yellow Mustang?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, it's parked in front of Mr. Donnelly's house."

  "Yeah?"

  "Maybe she's in there rattin' you guys out for last night."

  "No, she wouldn't do that. Anyway, she doesn't have to. They know who I am. And they know where to find Tino and Victor."

  "Yeah. I guess so. Well, I thought you might want to know."

  "Sure, thanks. I'll check it out." I hopped on my bike and hurried to Mr. Donnelly's. The air was hot and still and smoke-filled. I saw the yellow Mustang up ahead. Someone was sitting in front, on the passenger side. I pulled up next to the window and saw a familiar face.

  "Shandra?"

  Shandra turned her dark eyes toward me. She seemed to be miles away, lost in thought. She finally said, "Fisher Man, you live around here?"

  "Yeah."

  She nodded and pointed at Mr. Donnelly's house. "Do you know this guy?"

  "Uh-huh. Mr. Donnelly.
The sportswriter."

  She explained, "Coach Bright and my brother, Antoine, are in there talking to him." She seemed to drift away again, but then she said enthusiastically, "Hey, I heard what you did last night!"

  "Oh yeah? Did Antoine tell you?"

  "No. Antoine wasn't there."

  "No?"

  "No. He stayed at home." She slipped back into her faraway voice. "You know, he's the star of the Lake Windsor High School football team, but he doesn't live in Lake Windsor. He lives in Tangerine."

  "I understand. I kinda do the same thing. I live in Lake Windsor, but I play in Tangerine."

  "But you don't have to lie about what you do, do you? You don't have to live a lie every day of your natural-born life, do you?"

  I shook my head no, and she continued. "That kind of lie eats away at people, day by day, till it makes them sick at heart. And that's why Antoine didn't show up to collect any awards last night. He was feeling sick at heart."

  I sat back on my seat and asked her, as casually as I could, "Is he just feeling guilty about lying, or what?"

  "I don't know. I guess it's not just one thing. He felt real bad after that last game, beatin' up on Tangerine High like that. They were all his homeboys, you know, the kids he hung out with just a couple of years ago. He didn't want to beat them that bad, embarrass them like that." Shandra looked down and lowered her voice some. "And I know he felt bad about me, about me not being able to put my own picture in the paper, even though I earned the right to. About me not being able to show pride in myself, because I'm afraid of giving him away. Because I'm afraid of somebody looking at me and saying, 'That's Antoine's sister. How come she plays for Tangerine and he plays for Lake Windsor?'"

  I thought about her running from the camera and from Mr. Donnelly. Now here she was, sitting in his driveway. What was going on? I said, "Shandra, is there something else? Is there some other reason why Antoine is feeling so sick at heart?"

  Shandra's eyes burned into me. She answered intensely. "Yes, there's something else. They won't tell me what it is, but there's something else. Antoine was on his knees crying last night. And that wasn't about his homeboys, and that wasn't about me. He couldn't stop himself. I got scared, so I called Coach Bright. Coach and Antoine stood outside and talked for a long time, then they came in and called up Mr. Donnelly. Now here we are."

  I heard the front door slam. I turned to see Betty Bright coming down the walkway toward us. Antoine Thomas and Mr. Donnelly were still standing in the doorway, shaking hands.

  Betty Bright looked tired, sad eyed, but she managed a smile when she saw me. "Paul Fisher. Hey, I heard what you did last night."

  "Hi, Coach."

  She looked down at me. "Are you coming back next year?"

  "I sure hope so."

  "My girl Shandra here is moving up to the high school. I was thinking of maybe trying out a boy in the goal."

  I laughed, but then I said, "I'll do what you say, Coach. But I don't want Shandra's job. I want Maya's."

  "Is that right? OK. Whatever. I want you back."

  I heard the front door close again. Antoine Thomas came toward us, walking slowly. He's Betty Bright's height, but wider and all muscle. She said to him, "You OK?"

  He answered, "Yeah," in a low, calm voice.

  "Then it's all taken care of?"

  "Yeah. He'll be running the story tomorrow." He looked down at Shandra. "We're telling the truth now. Understand? Don't tell anybody anything but the truth from now on."

  Antoine looked over at me casually. Then his eyes narrowed.

  Betty Bright said, "This is Paul Fisher. He's one of my players."

  Antoine studied my face. He said, "You're Erik Fisher's little brother?"

  I tightened up at the sound of Erik's name. I mumbled, "Yes."

  Antoine said quietly, "It's time to start telling the truth, little brother. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  I nodded like I understood. But I didn't. Not really. Not until he added, "Don't spend your life hiding under the bleachers, little brother. The truth shall set you free."

  I nodded with real conviction now. I said, "Yes! Yes!"

  Betty Bright and Shandra were clearly puzzled, but they didn't ask any questions. Antoine said to them, "Come on, we've got one more stop to make." He looked back at me. "We've gotta tell somebody else the truth."

  The three of them backed out and drove away quickly, without another word, leaving me alone in Mr. Donnelly's driveway.

  I repeated to myself, "Under the bleachers!" And I knew what the next stop was going to be. Antoine was going to the Sheriff's Department to tell them what he had witnessed, to tell them that he had witnessed the murder of Luis Cruz.

  Suddenly I was startled by the sound of the garage door opening and the sight of Mr. Donnelly backing toward me at high speed. I had to push off quickly to get my bike out of his way. He slammed on his brakes and rolled down the window. He was all flustered.

  "Are you OK, Paul?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm sorry. I should have been looking. There are too many kids around here. I should have been looking."

  "That's OK. I'm all right." He didn't say anything else, so I did. "I just talked to Betty Bright. She said that she brought Antoine Thomas to see you."

  "That's right. Did she tell you what we talked about?"

  "No, sir."

  Mr. Donnelly thought for a few seconds. "Then I'd better not tell you, either. Let's let everybody find out the right way, in tomorrow's paper. OK, Paul?"

  "OK."

  Mr. Donnelly pulled away, leaving me wondering what Antoine could have told him. I pulled out onto the road and started pedaling, thinking, I guess we'll all have to wait until tomorrow.

  I managed to avoid Mom and Dad for most of the day. I know they were in the alcove for hours with that yellow legal pad. At five o'clock the three of us sat down in a circle around a pizza, but no one was hungry.

  Mom said to me, "We're going to have an important meeting here tomorrow at noon, Paul. We'd like you to attend."

  I said, "OK."

  Dad added, "We've invited some people. You should be one of them."

  "OK."

  We all picked at the pizza in silence, and then we all reacted to the same disturbing sound. It was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor overhead. Erik, apparently, was holed up in his room—hiding his face.

  Sunday, December 3

  I was up before dawn today, waiting for the news. The bad news. I was standing on the sidewalk when a white van with squeaky brakes drove up. A thin arm reached out of the passenger-side window and tossed the Sunday edition of the Tangerine Times onto the driveway. It was oversized, and heavy, and double-wrapped in a plastic bag.

  The same thing was happening all over Lake Windsor Downs; the same thing was happening at all the other developments. The white vans were pulling up, and these fat plastic bags were flying out the windows, bursting like water balloons in the homes of the football fans of Lake Windsor High School. It sure was a mess.

  Our phone started ringing at 7:00 A.M. Dad answered it upstairs and heard the bad news from another football father. I don't even know which one.

  I was already down in the great room, reading all about it. The story filled the bottom right-hand corner of the front page. It took up two columns there and was continued on page 10. The headline said, "Lake Windsor Athlete Confesses in Football Scandal." There was a photo of Antoine Thomas leaving the Tangerine County Municipal Building with the caption "Star quarterback Antoine Thomas leaves emergency meeting of the Tangerine County Sports Commission."

  The front page was just the tip of the iceberg. The article continued inside, with photos, charts, and quotations spread across all of pages 10 and 11. There were photos of Antoine, Coach Warner, and the three members of the Tangerine County Sports Commission. There was a chart showing the territorial boundaries of Lake Windsor High School and Tangerine High School, and another chart showing the Lake Windsor footbal
l records before and after the arrival of Antoine Thomas. The quotes were from Coach Warner and Mr. Bridges. They were both "shocked" by the news. Neither admitted to knowing anything about anything.

  The article itself began, "The Tangerine County Sports Commission, meeting in emergency session last night, voted to nullify all victories by the Lake Windsor High School football team over the last three seasons. This drastic action was taken in response to a confession made by Lake Windsor quarterback Antoine Thomas to the Commission members. In a signed statement, Thomas confessed to lying about his eligibility to attend Lake Windsor High School."

  The article quoted a Commission member as saying that Antoine "had contacted them, had met with them, and had presented them with a notarized statement." The same member said they "had no choice but to uphold the regulations of the Commission and to nullify all the victories in which Mr. Thomas was involved."

  I couldn't believe what I was reading. I had thought that maybe Lake Windsor would get fined. Or they would have to forfeit their last victory against Tangerine High. But not this. I never even suspected that the Commission had such power. It was like they were rewriting history.

  Lake Windsor had had a 7–3 record in Antoine's first season; they were 9–1 the next season and 10–0 this season. That's a total of 26 wins and 4 losses. Now they're 0–30. Zero wins and 30 losses over the last three seasons.

  And if that's not bizarre enough, every record that they set with Antoine on the team has been nullified, too. There was a boxed list of those. Most of the records belonged to Antoine Thomas, but Erik Fisher was in there for the longest field goal, the highest field-goal percentage in a season, and the most extra points in a season.

  Not anymore. They're all nullified.

  There was another article that focused on a guy who lives in Tangerine, on the same street as Antoine Thomas. He's a black guy about twenty-five years old, who had played football at Tangerine High and then at Florida A & M. This is part of what he said: "Everybody knows how it is. If you want that bigtime football dream, that Heisman Trophy thing, you get out of Tangerine. No big-time scouts ever come here. Ever. So you get yourself an address in Lake Windsor. You have your mail sent there, but you continue to live here. You live a lie. Everybody knows what's happening. Nobody asks any questions ... But now Antoine is the one standing up saying that it's all a lie, so people have to listen."