Oryon

by T Cooper

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Dad raises his eyebrows, says nothing, sits there indifferently. I see. I’m going to talk about it whether I want to or not. I make the decision not to mention Jason by name. The last thing I need is Dad calling in the Council cavalry.

  “Something crappy happened at practice,” I shrug.

  “And . . .”

  “And . . .” My brain fumbles around for the right language. “And, I don’t know, just this guy was being an ass.”

  “How?” he asks, still calm.

  “He tackled me really high, pretty much on purpose,” I say, not being as clear as I wish I could. “He wasn’t even doing the drill with me, I think he just, I don’t know . . .”

  “Well, did you tell the coach?” Dad asks, and pow, instantly I regret saying anything at all. I should’ve just marched in with a giant fake smile on my face and been like, “Yay, Dad and Son Pizza Night, yay!” and then I wouldn’t be in the middle of a conversation I have no interest in being in with no real resolution anyway. Jason isn’t going anywhere. And I am on his radar. Ratting him out isn’t going to make my life any easier, that much is clear.

  “No.” My stomach roils. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Well, what was it like? Who was the player?” Dad asks, now somewhat worked up.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. Who is this kid?”

  “The quarterback. I don’t think anybody really wants to hear about anything he’s doing wrong when he’s supposed to bring us to State this year.”

  Dad sits back. Thinks. Leans forward, hands planted on knees. “Wait. You mean the boy who tried to . . . tried to . . .” he starts, but can’t finish. “The one who . . . Audrey’s brother? The Abider?”

  I don’t say anything. Which is coming off as more affirmative than if I’d screamed, YEEEESSSS! directly into Dad’s face.

  “How long has this been going on? Is he bullying you outside of practice? Have you talked to Tracy about him? I think we need to take this to the Council.” Dad is all business now, funneling his outrage into problem-solving a problem that can’t be solved.

  “He’s not bullying me. Please, I don’t want to tell the Council,” I beg. “It’s nothing. There’s nothing to tell. I’m a guy now, it’s totally different. I can handle him.”

  “Was he picking on you for being black?” Dad asks, solemn.

  “No. Not really. Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, he’s supposed to be an Abider, right? So he's probably not down with the minorities.”

  “That kid is no good,” Dad says, more to himself than to me. “Racism was more overt in a lot of ways when I was your age, but we can’t underestimate its insidiousness—”

  “Dad,” I interrupt, “can we talk about this some other time? My head hurts.”

  “Okay, I suppose.” He seems wounded, though in a different place. “I was going to share a little about when I was an African American girl in eleventh grade, but I guess it can wait.”

  “I love picturing that,” I say, trying to get him to lighten up. “So you weren’t about to choose that V?”

  “I could’ve, I probably should’ve . . .” He trails off, eons away from here and now. “To be honest, if I was stronger, I probably would’ve. But . . .”

  He falls silent for a minute. My head throbs, along with my pulse. Snoopy wet-noses me and I pet him behind the left ear.

  “That was not to be,” Dad pronounces. Then gets all cheery, as in fake “Up with Changers” cheery (I recognize the move from the mixers at Changers HQ). “And I wouldn’t have had you and Mom had I gone that direction, so I am most certainly happy with who I am. As should you be, by the way. You’re a good kid . . . Can I get you some Advil?”

  I nod my head. And that’s when the buzzer rings; it’s the doorman, advising us that the be-hatted pizza delivery lady is on her way up to the apartment with our pies.

  I ate five slices—yes, five—and the Advil didn't really work, so I took two more PMs, and now I’m lying here in bed finishing up this Chronicling because I still can’t seem to fall asleep, but I need to because I want to be rested for practice tomorrow and do really well (suck it, Jason), even if it’s only for the JV squad. If I prove myself, maybe I’ll even get in the varsity game for a minute or two on Friday night. Why that matters to me at all, I’m not sure. But it does. Right now, it’s everything.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 17

  In the first Peregrine Review meeting, we looked through Mr. Crowell’s collection of literary magazines, like McSweeney’s, Bomb, One Story, Tin House, and so on. The guy really knows how to party; he told us how sometimes a whole weekend will pass by and he will have done nothing more than curl up on his leisure chair with a new issue of one of these magazines and scarcely remember to use the toilet. Which, A) TMI, and B) I hope he knows Tracy’s idea of a perfect Saturday most certainly does not involve stewing in your juices on a stained, rust-colored 1970 corduroy Barcalounger reading fifty-page interviews with obscure writers who have one foot in the grave.

  Anyway, I’m at a back corner table with Audrey, Aaron, and this cute, athletic-looking freshman girl Amanda, who is wearing about five pieces of jewelry fashioned from duct tape and seems very involved in whatever photographs she keeps turning vertically between her hands and studying closely like a naughty centerfold picture.

  Aaron and I are the only guys in the class, except this frizzy-haired skinny dude wearing a Neil Young tee, Brian, who is feverishly scribbling in a spiral notebook, and Mr. Crowell, whom Chloe is monopolizing by forcing him to flip through her poetry chapbook, which she wrote and hand-sewed in the eighth grade, inspired by her favorite poetess, Jewel. I think I see Mr. Crowell wince.

  “Poor him,” I say, and both Aaron and Audrey chuckle. Amanda looks up too, smiles a big braces-filled smile, and goes back to dissecting the journal.

  Audrey’s been a tad chilly all day, probably since I was kind of a jerk at practice last night. I want to apologize, but I don’t really know how I’d say it.

  Aaron is acting a little weird too. Like, trying to be all butch Mr. Varsity Football Stud while simultaneously sitting here giggling at Nora Ephron. I mean, I wish I could tell the dude I know all about the little “secret” (a.k.a. Danny) he feels he has to hide from Jason and the rest of the football team, not to mention his parents and everybody else in school—but I have a feeling that would freak the poor guy out. (Probably not as much as if he knew we’d double-dated boy-boy/girl-girl on the DL at prom last year. Now THAT would blow his closet and his mind wide open.)

  As I’m thinking of a way to show I’m “down with the gays” without appearing presumptuous or hopelessly lame, Aaron asks, “Dude, you psyched for the game on Friday?”

  Audrey gets up to exchange journals from Mr. Crowell’s shelf.

  “I guess. I’m a little sore,” I say. “I probably won’t play.”

  “Ploughshares or Granta?” Audrey asks when she comes back to the table.

  “Everybody plays eventually,” Aaron says. “And if you’re not sore, you’re not going at it hard enough.”

  “Dirty,” Audrey says cheekily, slapping both journals on the table. “You done with that?” she asks Amanda, who simply flips to the next page, where I think I see a little boob in an “arty” shot that’s part of some photography spread.

  “I kind of got nailed yesterday in practice,” I say to Aaron, looking at Audrey. “And I was kind of a jerk to her after.”

  “My brother, your teammate and quarterback,” Audrey says, by way of explanation to Aaron. “And my personal ancestral nightmare.”

  “We’ve all had our struggles with Jason,” Aaron says. “Welcome to the club.”

  “I was just embarrassed,” I confess, mostly to Audrey.

  “If that’s the farthest it goes, consider yourself lucky,” Audrey brushes it off. “Someone should castrate him before it’s too late.”

  “Girl, you did not,” Aaron snarks, but t
hen tamps it down when he seems to remember my outsider presence.

  “Folks,” Mr. Crowell interrupts, “we’re supposed to be perusing and reading for inspiration. That’s what’s happening over there, right?”

  I start looking over Amanda’s shoulder at the photo spread of some half-naked lady posing in the desert between a goat and a Joshua Tree, as Audrey and Aaron continue whispering about how much Danny was tortured by Jason over the last couple years, but how ecstatic Danny is now, to be away at school in Atlanta, a.k.a. Valhalla. They are talking all cryptically, swapping pronouns when necessary, so I won’t understand what’s really going on, who Danny really is; Aaron saying he wants to fly under the radar, keep his head down and post as many yards as possible, so he can get his athletic scholarship and the heck out of Genesis next year—maybe even play for a school near Atlanta (presumably so he can be closer to Danny).

  “He texted yesterday—from modern dance class!” Audrey squeals. “He says he’s in heaven!”

  “Yeah, can you imagine how many hot girls in tight spandex he’s surrounded by all the time?” Aaron asserts for my benefit. “Lucky bastard.”

  There is a dissonant moment where Aaron throws a pleading look Audrey’s way (which he thinks I don’t see but I do), and then I offer with no sense of irony or ridicule: “I LOVE modern dance.”

  They do simultaneous double takes.

  “I do,” I insist. “Mostly because I get to wear the tight spandex. Why do you think I’m playing football?”

  Aud snorts and Aaron laughs, which breaks up some of the tension before Mr. Crowell starts wading between tables and handing out writing exercise prompts. I get a poem, Audrey a short-short story, Aaron a personal essay. Nobody (but Chloe of course) seems happy with poetry, but I have something on my mind, and I’m psyched to get down to the business of trying to get it out in a concise, indirect way, which is what poems do, right?

  I start free-associating, like Mr. Crowell has been telling us to, jotting random thoughts and images and words in pencil on a blank sheet of notebook paper. I’ve written down about twenty things when I notice Audrey watching me. She hasn’t put anything to paper yet, nor has Aaron, who is staring out the window, likely wrestling with the prospect of writing something personal without revealing anything personal.

  “It’s a little odd that you’re into the whole literary magazine thing,” Audrey says out of nowhere.

  I look up. Aaron is studying me now too.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t pigeonhole people,” I counter. “You know, maybe let them surprise you.”

  “Touché,” Audrey says, and then she and Aaron smile at one another, and I go back to my free-associating: muscle, ink, extinct, lightness, soft, freedom, man, woman, secrets, lies, love, love, love.

  CHANGE 2–DAY 19

  When people say football is a religion in the South, BELIEVE them.

  As high up as I felt last year when I got a glimpse of life on the JV cheerleading squad? That’s like being a background extra in a home-renovation show compared to playing on the football team, where everybody’s the gorgeous star of their own superhero blockbuster.

  I’d observed it from down on the field last year, but that didn’t prepare me for being amidst a thousand-plus people in the stands clapping in unison while seventy-something pairs of cleats militaristically (not to mention ominously) march down the center metal bleachers, with boastful rap music blasting over the crappy speakers. Our names and numbers are announced, but you can scarcely hear anything over the hungry roaring of the crowd. As you pick through the manic audience all swathed in some combination of maroon, black, and white, strangers slap your helmet and hands, sometimes grabbing you by the shoulder pads and butting heads with your helmet alarmingly forcefully, with no regard for their own cerebral damage. Basically, folks just try to touch any part of you within reach as though you can bring them good luck, like one of those cats with the waving paw you see in the windows of Chinese restaurants.

  It’s straight-up bonkers is what it is, and I almost had a coronary the first time some burly local fan in a flannel shirt with a chewing tobacco tin–sized hole in the front pocket took it even further and slapped my ass hard as I rounded the corner and began walking the front-row gauntlet of bleachers. I whipped my head around to see what the hell had just happened, but the guy betrayed NO shame in the least, just initiated intense eye contact, pumped both his fists in the air, and yelled at the top of his register, “WOOOOOOOOO!” jutting his chin at me then toward the field. “Now get on down there and show them what Falcons are made of! WOOOO!”

  My gaze followed his nod, where Jason and the other starters (including Aaron, Baron, and Dashawn, a friend of DJ’s) were already on the sideline, bouncing up and down like boxers, loosening up, throwing and catching balls to get warm. For a minute I forgot I was also headed down there bringing up the rear of the snaking line of players (most of us back here officially on the JV roster, but nevertheless suited up for the varsity season opener).

  I just kept marching, following the player in front of me. As I passed the rows I noticed a few of my teachers, some other faculty, familiar nameless (to me) students, janitors, Miss Jeannie from registration (in a foam Falcon headdress), the principal, vice principal, the French teacher, guidance counselors, even Hank our late-night doorman at our apartment building. Damn, who wasn’t there? Everybody to a person smiling and encouraging, hollering, clapping, nonstop dapping my shoulders, my helmet—and a couple more rattling times, my butt.

  The game itself was a similar blur, and went faster than seemed possible for all of the anticipatory run-up. The whole first half, I stood on one of the benches so I could see over the guys on the sideline, me and a handful of freshmen and sophomore JV guys just gripping our helmets and shifting our weight back and forth, acting like we were ready if called upon, but in fact terrified of being asked to go out there with all the lights and screams and dreams and hopes and anticipation raining down on us.

  I was watching the furry Falcon mascot pretending to be bowled over by the stunning beauty of the Lady Falconettes’ cheering, when this kid Damon next to me got called in on our second possession in the second half. He snapped to, but when he stepped off the bench and yanked his helmet over his head, he twisted a knee or something and crumpled to the ground. It was hard not to laugh because it was so unbelievable, but dude really hurt himself and couldn’t go in. They had to carry him off in the Falcon golf cart with a platform on the back before the next snap of the ball.

  The only other part I remember is the crowd went buck when Jason threw two “perfect” touchdowns, one of which Aaron caught over two defenders’ heads, and the tangible pressure on the sidelines was considerably alleviated when in the fourth quarter Dashawn forced and recovered a fumble and returned it all the way, putting us up by twenty-one.

  “Small!” I heard from somewhere in front of me. “Small! You’re up. Gunner!”

  It was the assistant coach Peters, and it appeared he wanted me to go in with special teams.

  My chest tightened, all my blood felt like it was rushing away from my limbs. Don’t trip, don’t trip! I was yelling at myself with Damon’s fate in my head, as I hopped down off the bench and found myself mechanically jogging over to the sideline. All the blood had seemingly left my brain too, since I couldn’t even remember whether we were kicking or receiving, but then I saw our kicker run out and realized that I needed to line up on the other side of him, and before I knew it, he dropped his hand and booted the ball and I was racing down the field full tilt toward two kids who were peering up expectantly into the lights above us like a flying saucer was about to land and perform a double alien abduction.

  The guy on my side of the field caught the ball. There was a short pause and beat of silence after he collected it into his gut, and then he started kicking up dirt running toward us. I trained my eyes on him, specifically on the ball in his left hand as he pumped his arms, picking up speed. Closer, closer, closer. I launch
ed his way with my hands outstretched toward the ball, which I TOUCHED and tried to wrap the tips of my fingers around to pry loose, but he held on too tight. I did grab hold of his other arm though, which spun and slowed him just enough for the teammate behind me to tackle him to the ground and end the play.

  Whistle from the ref. Low clapping from the stands, our sideline, the special teams coach. I stood there panting, swiveling my helmet around like, What next? as everybody scurried off and on the field with purpose, and finally I realized that was my cue to exit. Which I did, right as Jason jogged on, absorbed by the plays written on his armband. He didn’t even register my presence. Fine by freaking me.

  And that’s what I remember of my first high school football game experience. As a player.

  I would stop there, but this Chronicle wouldn’t comprise the entirety of my first high school football game experience unless I also include a retelling of what happened post-game, at the after-party at a teammate’s house near school.

  I walked in solo, clutching my skateboard in one hand like a blankie, and a six-pack of Dr Pepper in the other. Right when I sidle in I’m greeted by a wall of cigarette smoke (with some pot and cloves muddled in). Music’s loud, crushed cups strewn about, the party already in full gonzo mode. I don’t see DJ (who’d texted he was going to meet me here), just a bunch of the guys from the team and random girls hanging off them vying for attention, when all dudes seem to want to do is impress one another.

  Some of the players do the head-nod thing as I wade through the living room, nice and open-faced like I am somebody or something. Like I am their equal. Some of the girls are extra smiley too, which I have no idea what to do with, but luckily I can leave that conundrum for another time because I soon find myself in the dining room and headed toward the kitchen, praying I see someone I can actually talk to before I decide it was a terrible idea to come here, and that I should instead be sitting at home eating cold pizza and watching some old-timey detective movie with Snoopy balled up on the couch next to me.