Bad Call

by Stephen Wallenfels

  His father says, Take this exit.

  Colin asks why.

  He says it’s time to address the endless residues of life.

  I don’t know what that means, Colin says.

  His father says, You’ve been wanting to do this one thing for a long time. And I’ve been letting all those residues pile up and get in the way.

  Stop talking dad code, Colin says, taking the exit and pulling up to a stop sign. Cows huddle in a pasture across the road, tails twitching at flies in the humid calm. Colin waits because he doesn’t know which way to turn.

  Go right, his dad says.

  Colin asks, So what’s this about?

  He says, It’s about time we do that thing you always wanted to do.

  Colin makes the turn, asking, Which thing is that?

  His dad says, Let’s ski Tuckerman Ravine.

  And then the sky opens like it was slashed with a claw, dropping a warm torrent while the car rocks in the sudden wind, and Colin hits the wipers but they can’t keep up. As the sky flashes silver and thunder rolls, he makes that turn, thinking that one dream dies so another can live, and how the timing of this storm couldn’t be more perfect.

  They walk out of Leatherman’s Gear and Tackle with two new pairs of one-hundred-dollar hiking boots, the kind his father says they need to do Tuckerman right. During the drive home they make plans to leave for New Hampshire in two weeks because any later and the snow might be gone. Colin will have to skip the tournament in Plattsburgh and maybe the one in Killington, too. That’s okay, they agree, because since California isn’t working out, this is the bigger deal.

  When they drive into the garage, Mom meets them at the door, waving an actual envelope, which she hands to Colin. He sits on the riding lawn mower and tears into the envelope while his father fiddles with a fishing pole, his mother knocks down a spiderweb, and the car drips. The letter is from Coach Carson at Chandler Gates Academy in Los Angeles, saying the Lyle Gates Scholar Athlete Award is currently available and it’s his if he makes the top two and maintains a 3.7 or better GPA.

  The one-hundred-dollar hiking boots go onto the shelf next to a crate marked IRRIGATION SUPPLIES.

  That’s where they stay untouched until Colin flies home for the funeral ten months later, when he pulls them down, thinks about taking them back to LA, but decides no.

  Too much weight.

  Fifteen minutes and eight switchbacks after saying happy trails to the three men, we pass a pool of drying vomit. It attracted a cloud of flies we heard buzzing twenty feet away. The trail is too narrow to get by without coming uncomfortably close to the edge of a serious drop-off. Our only choice is to step over the brown-and-white-flecked stain and through the flies, holding our breath against the sour air as we go. Once we’re on the other side and safely beyond the smell, Ellie stops and asks the question I’ve been expecting ever since Ceo and Grahame made their bet in the parking lot this morning.

  “What’s a Double-B?”

  “It’s not pretty.”

  “That’s a given. Tell me the gory details.”

  I explain how Grahame and Ceo wanted an alternative currency for bets that didn’t involve real money, since Ceo had too much, Grahame had some, and I didn’t have any. They created the Double-B, aka Bag Boy, in which the loser of the bet has to carry the winner’s racquet bag for the entire day and fill his water bottle when needed.

  “Seriously?” she says. “Isn’t tennis competitive enough already? Do you have to demean the people that actually provide this service for a living?”

  “We never bet on tennis,” I say, aware that I only answered the first half of her question and avoided the second half entirely because it is demeaning and stupid and there really is no excuse. On the other hand, looking at her leaning a little forward on her walking stick, I’m also keenly aware of how some people work the sweaty T-shirt look better than others.

  Ceo is good. Ellie is better.

  She turns and resumes walking. I expect her to ask the obvious question, Has Ceo or Grahame ever been a bag boy? To which I would answer no and yes respectively, and that’s a major bone of contention. Instead she asks me if I’ve been a victim of that ridiculous bet.

  I say, “Almost.”

  “Why almost?”

  “I lost a bet to Ceo.”

  “What was the bet?”

  “A regrettable decision involving a seagull and a homeless man. In the end it doesn’t matter because Ceo offered me clemency if I did this one thing.”

  “Did you accept?”

  “I did.”

  “What was the one thing?”

  “I had to go on a catalog shoot with him.”

  “Sounds humbling. Where was it?”

  “San Clemente.”

  After a beat. “When was that?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  She takes another beat. And another. Says, “I had a soccer tournament in San Clemente.”

  “When?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  I say nothing, wondering about this new puzzle piece and how it fits.

  She asks, “Did you go?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was an unfortunate event at school. It caused me to reject my clemency.”

  “Well. That’s…unfortunate.”

  We walk in silence for a bit. Then I can’t help but ask, “While you were playing soccer in San Clemente…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you happen to spy any blond tennis players with bad acting skills wearing a John Cusack Sucks T-shirt?”

  “No,” she says, her mind wheeling. “But an old man on Rollerblades asked me to autograph his Speedo.”

  “Cool. Front or back?”

  “Always go with the back. Less bumpy.”

  “I’ll file that under information I wish I didn’t know.”

  Their conversation stalls after that, which is okay with her. She needs the time to sort through this San Clemente revelation and what it means, if anything at all. It could be the universe flexing its random muscle, but she doubts it. The odds are much higher that Ceo is up to something. After a couple more switchbacks, Colin says he needs another pebble stop. She finds a place with a decent sitting rock and unwraps a chocolate bar while he takes off and dumps his shoe. During this process he says, “So you play on the U-18 national team?”

  “Played. How did you know that?”

  “Ceo told us. He said you had a shutout against Brazil in Barcelona.”

  Ellie considers the source of this information. She knows she didn’t tell Ceo about the national team while they were at the workshop because she didn’t tell anyone. He must have googled her, which would result in links to USsoccer.com and her high school website, both of which feature articles about her and her tournament schedule. This means he’s been paying attention to her when she thought he wasn’t. The randomness of San Clemente is feeling incrementally less random.

  She says, “Actually, I had two shutouts if you don’t count the own goal in the semifinals.”

  Finished with his shoe, he sits on the rock next to her. She hands him the chocolate bar. He breaks off a piece and offers her some of his water. “The national team. That’s crazy.”

  “Crazy is a good word.”

  “Are you the next Hope Solo?”

  She smiles. There aren’t many guys her age that know that name. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Why? Are you a Hope hater?”

  “No. I’m a soccer hater.”

  “There’s a twist I didn’t see coming.”

  “It’s a twisty kind of day.”

  “Is there a reason for this soccer rage?”

  “There is. But I’d rather not talk about it now.”

  They eat and drink in silence while watching a hawk do slow, lazy turns on a late-afternoon thermal. Colin asks, “Before we move on to something else, just to be safe…what other topics are on Ellie’s love-to-hate list that I should avoid?”

/>   “Cigarette butts. They take ten months to ten years to biodegrade and are a fire hazard. Why isn’t that considered littering? Sequels to movies that shouldn’t have been a movie in the first place. Why is there a market for Piranha Six? And number one on my all-time love-to-hate list: elephant poachers. Don’t get me started on them.”

  “I won’t. But now you have me worried.”

  “About what?”

  “What is your position on egg poachers?”

  “Please do not tell me you are an egg poacher.”

  He nods sadly.

  She snatches the chocolate bar from him in feigned anger. “I knew there was something sinister about you. Why do all the good guys I meet turn out to be poachers?”

  “It’s not my fault. I was forced into the life.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “But it’s true. My mother’s favorite food is eggs Benedict. That’s what my father and I used to cook for her every Mother’s Day. And my father…he…he liked poached perch eggs in cream on toast. By the time I was old enough to see the horror, I was in too deep.”

  “Well,” she says, noting the different tenses of his parents, “who doesn’t like a creamy platter of poached perch eggs now and then?”

  The hawk banks right and heads west. They watch it fade into the horizon, which has become increasingly gray. It triggers a thought that feels like it should be important, but it isn’t quite there, so she leaves it for later, bumps Colin with her shoulder, and says, “It’s your turn now. Tell me what’s on your love-to-hate list.”

  “War and starvation?”

  “Nope. I gave you something original. Something about me. You have to do the same. Give me something that is distinctly Colin-esque.”

  He turns from the void, his eyes seeking and finding hers. She hasn’t seen him quite like this, feels a subtle change in the wind of him. He returns to the void.

  “Bubble Wrap,” he says. “Definitely not a fan.”

  They go off campus to buy pulled-pork burritos for lunch, two bottled waters plus a deluxe side of jalapeño fries with extra chipotle sauce to share, then cross the street to a small shady park overlooking the beach. Ceo brings the Frisbee in case there’s time for a toss, but the burrito line was longer than usual, so that’s not in the cards. Unless Colin decides to bail on his one thirty class. Ceo says that’s the obvious play, given the babe-to-wave ratio is plus two point five, and we’re playing a challenge match at three, and, Q, you’re gonna need all your brainpower for that.

  As they walk to an open table Ceo stops to regard a homeless man they observed while standing in line. He was working the garbage cans, reaching all the way down to his shoulder. Now he’s horizontal on a bench, knit cap folded over his eyes, and one dark arm hanging down to the grass. The scent of garbage around him competes with car exhaust and fry grease and salt from the ocean breeze. A seagull is perched on the bench at the man’s feet, which are sockless in unmatched shoes without laces. The bird is eyeing the remains of a sandwich still in the man’s curled fingers with one thumbnail as black as oil. Colin moves to scare the bird away, but Ceo says, Wait, it’s man vs. nature. He bets Colin a Double-B that the bird scores the sandwich before the homeless dude wakes up. Colin agrees to the wager against his better judgment because that’s how it goes when your friend is a force of that very same nature.

  Plus that friend paid for the fries.

  After talking about Coach’s latest agility drills that suck almost as much as running bleachers, and whether or not Rhody has a serious online poker habit warranting intervention, Ceo takes a long pull on his water and nods to the bird that hasn’t moved a feather. He snaps a picture with his Samsung and says, Q, looks like you’re finally gonna win one.

  Colin says, You think I should call 911?

  Ceo says, Nah, he’s just taking a bench nap. And it wouldn’t be fair to the bird that has invested all this time. Before Colin can calculate how sick that statement is on how many levels, Ceo asks him why he was so quiet on the drive this morning. You had something on your mind and I know it wasn’t Meno’s Paradox.

  Colin stirs the chipotle sauce with a fry.

  Ceo says, You got the Mom call, right?

  Colin nods, eats the coated fry. Knows it’s too late to steer the conversation back to safer ground.

  Ceo asks if she’s sending another package.

  Yes, Colin says. A picture of me with a big fish.

  Is your dad in this picture?

  No. He took the photo. We were in an ice-fishing tournament for walleyes.

  Ceo laughs. Asks, What the hell’s a walleye?

  It’s a cross between a perch and a pike.

  There’s actually tournaments to catch walleyed fish through the ice?

  Winters in Vermont are too long, Colin tells him. We have to do something.

  Ceo asks, Will you even open this package? Grahame says you haven’t opened the last three.

  Colin says, They’ll get opened. Not before midterms, though.

  Ceo consumes the last fry, glances at man vs. nature. The standoff rages on.

  He says to Colin, Why don’t you just ask her to stop sending those packages until you’re ready?

  Because she needs to send them more than I need her to stop.

  Because the residues of life would pile up and bury her.

  Because she has miles and miles of Bubble Wrap.

  But Colin doesn’t say any of that.

  Because Ceo’s eyes go wide, and he whispers, Dude, it’s game on!

  The seagull is perched on a kneecap. The man’s hanging arm twitches. The bird flaps its wings and rises up with a shriek, Colin thinking, Yes, I won. Then thinking, No I didn’t, as the seagull wheels around, swoops down, snatches that sandwich from the man’s fingers, and heads toward the beach with its crusty prize.

  The man goes fetal but does not wake up.

  Ceo grins at Colin, says, Lesson one, never bet against nature, so it looks like I have a bag boy for our match.

  Colin says, Looks like you do, and wonders if this is all some elaborate ploy to mess with his mind before they face off across the net in less than two hours.

  They toss their garbage and turn to leave.

  Colin holds his breath and puts the uneaten half of his burrito on the man’s backpack. Ceo slips a twenty under the flap. As they walk to the car Ceo says with the Frisbee spinning on his finger like a top, You know, Q, I’ll grant you clemency on the bet if you go on the gig with me.

  What gig?

  I told you this morning. The catalog shoot in San Clemente.

  Ah, that one. Will I get to see your muscles oiled up and glistening in the sun? I just can’t get enough of that.

  Yeah, well, it’s the price of admission, Ceo says. On the bright side, chances are all the bikini-clad models will block your view.

  Colin gets into the Mercedes, still smells perfume on the leather from last night.

  He thinks about the role the seagull played in this decision he’s about to make.

  Ceo says, Well, what’s the verdict?

  Colin says, All right, as long as I don’t have to see your greasy six-pack for hours on end.

  Ceo pulls away from the curb into traffic, shouting over “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit.” You, my blue-balled amigo, are gonna break out of your love slump. You’re gonna meet the girl of your sweet dreams in San Clemente, California!

  Oh man, he can fuckin’ feel it.

  We find Grahame sitting on a rock in the late-afternoon sun. The top can’t be more than a few switchbacks away, yet here he is. He smiles as we approach, like it’s all good. Like nothing happened and it’s just him resting his legs while enjoying this fine view. But I know Grahame. He can be the picture of serenity on the outside and tossing hand grenades at seal pups on the inside. Something happened between him and Ceo on this trail, and how he feels about that something is a mystery. But it won’t be one of those reveal-on-your-deathbed kinds of mysteries. In f
act, I bet this mystery won’t last five minutes because I saw the private look he shot me when Ellie was snapping a picture. We wait while he shoulders his pack, then nods to Ellie and says, “Your lead, goalie girl.” We start up the remaining switchbacks single file with Grahame taking my place behind her.

  At the first turn he says, “Q, no wonder it took you so long to get up here. I’d be taking my sweet time if I had this to look at all day.”

  “Keep your eyes on the trail, mister,” Ellie says, “or you may find yourself at the bottom of it.”

  Grahame laughs.

  At the second turn he says, “Ellie, did Q tell you how he got his name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Almost one point five million viewers last time I checked. Dude’s more famous than the penguin that plays blackjack. Pretty amazing, huh?”

  “Not really, considering the depravity of YouTube.”

  “Did he tell you what Ceo stands for?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then I can tell you. His dad named him Ceo because he wants him to take over the family business and build megamalls just like him. It stands for chief executive officer.”

  “Colin, add another hate to my list. Parents that name their kids after acronyms.”

  “It’s on my list, too,” I say.

  “Do you know what CEO really stands for?” Grahame asks.

  “No,” Ellie says. “And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to.”

  At the last turn, with Ceo beaming down at us from the top, Grahame says, “I came up with it all by myself while I was waiting for you guys. It stands for Cheats. Everyone. Often.”

  And there you have it.

  With thirty-five seconds to spare.

  We know why Ceo won.

  Cheats. Everyone. Often.

  I like it.

  Ceo says you have to see this, you just have to see it.

  We follow him on mercifully level ground through pine trees to a spot off the main trail looking out over the valley. He walks to a place that looks like the edge of the world, then six feet from that edge pretends to trip on a root and skid to a stop inches from falling into the abyss—which gets a laugh from exactly no one. But we’re all too tired and in actual awe of the view to be pissed.

  Half Dome has been our constant companion during the climb, but at this moment, with the sun hanging low like it is and the shadows angling the way they are, I can’t imagine Mother Nature putting on a better display than she is right now. Ceo reminds us that we’re looking at the largest mound of exposed granite in the world, then says, at this this very moment, in the presence of these witnesses, he vows to put climbing the face of her on his bucket list. Personally I just wish he’d stop hanging out so close to the edge. There’s loose gravel on the smooth rock where he stands, and a gusting wind is making the pine trees restless. The end result is my stomach getting a bad case of the creeping willies. And then there’s Grahame. He hasn’t spoken since we reached the top except what he just whispered to me after Ceo made his vow: