Leverage

by Joshua C. Cohen

  Sucking for wind and air and sun and light.

  Alive! Alive! Alive!

  “God!” I scream through chattering teeth. I swim fast as possible to the edge to get out of the water and get warm, move, run like a conqueror.

  Poomph.

  I hear the hit and twist around, wait for a few seconds, and see Fisher pop his head up like a seal, then sling his hair out of his face with one quick head snap.

  Fisher punches the sky. “That’s for Ronnie!” he shouts, and everyone hears it and for the first time in two weeks hearing that name doesn’t make me want to bow in shame. My teeth clack hard and, out of the water, I fold my hands under my armpits as I climb the steep trail of switchbacks fast as possible to get back to the top and warm up over the fire and put on dry clothes. When I reach the top, only half the team is there. The others have followed me over the edge or are about to. Kurt stands near the edge, watching us go over, craning his neck and guarding against the cliff somehow reaching up and snatching him over it.

  He whistles as Pete jumps off.

  “You going?” I ask, shivering, hopping from foot to foot and practically standing in the little bonfire.

  “Naw,” he says, shaking his head. “But muh-muh-maybe next time.”

  “Deal.”

  34

  KURT

  First, you create a soothing place in your mind,” Ms. Jinkle, the speech therapist, tells me. “Thinking about it should bring you only positive feelings and good energy. This will be your home base, your starting point as you try and relax. When you relax, you breathe slower and your tongue relaxes. Get to the soothing place first before attempting the word list I gave you. Remembering the breathing exercises we worked on, you’ll focus on the soothing place, then record yourself speaking these words. Listen to yourself. Then repeat the list again. Five times every day, okay?”

  “I duh-duh-don’t have a ruh-recorder.”

  “You do now,” Ms. Jinkle says, handing over an orange sheet of paper with my name filled onto it. It’s a library loan request for a digital recorder. “Go get it now so you can start tonight, no excuses. They’ll show you how to use it. Now, make sure you come up with a good soothing place,” she says. “Okay, see you same time next week.”

  The meeting with Ms. Jinkle ends halfway through fourth period, so I’m walking empty halls toward the library and trying to come up with a good soothing place when my mind wanders back to the quarry.

  I remember waking up in Fisher’s van and staring out at a forest wrapped in leaves the color of cherry, banana, and apricots. And then walking up to the lip of the pit with all that blue sky, pink rock, and black water dizzying my head; trusting that itty-bitty rope and harness to hold me. Whole thing felt crazy at first, letting Bruce and Danny talk me into rappelling down that cliff. But once I took that first backward step over the edge—one of the scariest steps ever, just backing up over nothing, praying everything would hold—well, then, the world changed. All of a sudden, in one step, I’m kind of floating, like one of those hawks that sits on a draft, never even flapping its wings, but just hanging out, searching for mice or whatever. Eighty feet of air between me and the water and only my old sneaks touching the side of that massive stone slab. These monkeys poking their heads over the top edge, staring down at me, eyes big, grins bigger, chattering at my progress. Danny’s grin the biggest of them all.

  Tippy-toeing along the rock turns into steps and then hops and then I really start shoving off the wall. I swing out from the cliff face and swing back in while the rope sings through my hands. My legs dance over the granite in slow motion. I’m graceful in a way that’s impossible in football pads and helmet. It’s like being in a dream where you figure out the secret to breaking gravity. Everyone else is stuck on the ground, stuck in the gears, but you get to float above it, float wherever you want.

  And then Danny, leaping without the ropes! I feel the corners of my mouth turn up, now, remembering Danny stepping off the cliff like it’s nothing. Never seen anything like that. Couldn’t believe how far he fell, just kept going until his tiny speck smacked the water and plunged beneath, trailing a stream of white bubbles. Felt like a whole minute before he surfaced. When his head did finally pop out, his high whoop bounced off the quarry walls, climbing the sky back up to us. Then the other guys racing to see who’s next over the cliff. Shwiff, shwiff, shwiff. They go over the edge like teenage superheroes, laughing at something that would kill a normal person. Daredevil Danny jogs the trail up top, hugging himself and shivering, lips purple, teeth chattering, and water drops coating his lashes. He’s wrapped in goose pimples, hopping foot-to-foot around the bonfire, and I half expect him to just step into the flames to get warm, since, if he can survive that jump, why not a little fire?

  Sun was setting over the far edge of the quarry before we finish gobbling up the last of the hot dogs and burgers, then get the ropes, harnesses, and coolers packed back into the van. The whole time I’m thinking I’m on the wrong team, that I should’ve let the hooting tribe of superhero monkeys adopt me instead.

  “Can I help you?” the librarian asks, shaking me from the daydream. I nod slowly, trying to remember why I’m standing in front of her. The tip of the librarian’s nose points down at my hands while she peers at me over her reading glasses. When I pass her the orange sheet, her lips move like she’s sucking lunch out of her teeth. She squints at Ms. Jinkle’s handwriting and, after a minute, she hands the note back to me and points at a door along the wall.

  “That’s the AVT room,” she says. “Tina’s in there now. She can help you.”

  I go where I’ve been pointed. On the door of the AVT room hangs a printed poster, a mushroom cloud in psychedelic rainbow colors with the words AUDIO VISUAL TECHNOLOGY CLUB IS A BLAST! A sheet of paper Scotch-taped to the bottom of the poster welcomes students to sign up for the AVT club. The sheet is empty. As I walk into the room, I discover that the Tina the librarian mentions is the little goth Tina from Meadow’s House.

  “Oh,” she says, seeing me before I can turn around to leave and come back another time. “Hi,” she says, pulling off headphones big as earmuffs and dropping them around her neck. Her white face reflects electric blue from whatever’s playing on her laptop screen.

  I take a slow breath and step forward, handing her the orange sheet.

  “Oooohhh . . . you must be special,” she teases. “We only have three of these babies and you get one on permanent loan for the whole year. Lucky you!”

  I scratch at my chin whiskers and nod, wondering if I can get the recorder and leave without actually talking.

  “Actually this is a requisition for one of our old, dumpy models. But luckily you’ve got the inside connection. Me. I’m gonna hook you up with our deluxe model. It’s smaller. You can clip it on your belt or even hang it around your neck. Best part is you can use it for your music. I’ll give you a flash disk, too, so you’ll have enough memory to hold a buttload of songs. You control playback and file searching with this button here,” she says, and her pinky flicks over the little gizmo without actually pointing to a button.

  “Wuh-wuh-where?”

  “Wow!” Tina says. “He speaks.” She reaches behind her and digs out a wire cable from a box full of flash disks and then plugs the recorder into her laptop while still talking. “Might as well give you all the goodies. I can hook you up with some of my music playlists—try and expand that jock brain of yours. Now that I’m thinking about it, I should send you the redubbed videos I’ve got. Not that you need more ego-stroking about your Friday night highlights but I’ve got some great edits—especially the one’s I’ve synched up to . . .” And she starts listing a dozen bands, most I’ve never heard of.

  “Wuh-what?” I hold my hand up, trying to halt her mouth. “Video?”

  “Of your games, duuude.” She drags this word out with a smirk and she might as well be saying “retard” or “shitbrain.” “Which reminds me, I thought the point of the game was that the ball car
rier avoids the tacklers? Not rams into the nearest guy with that box of rocks under your helmet. Last game, you may have given yourself early-onset Alzheimer’s. I saw it—we all saw it—way too up close and personal thanks to that helmet cam. I have to admit those hits are acoustical magic when I pipe them through the new SuperPulse sound system. Fans love it, too. And we always give the unwashed cretins what they want, right?” She stops long enough to take a breath of air and then starts up again. “It would be nice if you’d work on your verbal skills—I’m not asking for a twenty-four hundred SAT score or anything but I mean, come on, throw me a bone. I don’t need a Shakespearean sonnet, but give me something to work with beyond the occasional grunt. Think about it.”

  “You like fuh-fuh-football?” I ask.

  “About as much as getting my period,” she answers.

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t like football,” she clarifies before sliding a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “What I do like is single-handedly running the control board for our school’s newly acquired Xenbro XB 5000 Stadium Big Screen with SuperPulse sound system. You want bigger and better, you’ll have to buy NFL tickets.”

  “That’s yuh-yuh—” I start before she cuts me off.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” she says. “I’m the DJ up in the booth ... beeyatch!”

  “Why?” I ask, meaning why does she do it if she hates football?

  “Why? Are you serious?” she asks back, ready to laugh at how stupid the question is to her. “While Buffy and Chrissy are bragging that they led the cheerleading squad, I get to tell Harvard and Yale I ran the sound and light board equivalent of an outdoor rock concert on a biweekly basis. In fact, I may just skip college and set up my own production shop. Chrissy and Buffy will marry one of you no-necked, atavistic, knuckle-draggers and pop out pretty but dim-witted rug rats while I’m touring the world with the stars, being paid in euros and yen, and having people shudder in ecstacy every time my fingers tickle a sound-board. You and your buddies go on and break your heads open. I’ll broadcast it and make millions. That’s why.”

  She suddenly stops like she’s trying either to catch her breath or get hold of her mouth before it runs off without her. She turns her attention back to her laptop. I hear soft clicking as her fingers massage the keys. She starts talking again but this time she keeps her eyes on her laptop screen.

  “It’s only me and Walt Hasting, our play-by-play announcer and the man that time forgot, up in the booth. Walt’s about as useful and nimble around electronics as a mummy and he’s got no idea what the hell I do. He nips from a whiskey flask the whole game, tells me how much tougher the players were in his day—which to look at him, I’m guessing was back before fire—and refers to me as ‘devil girl.’ But as long as I get in the ‘Big Munch Crunch’ plug from our sponsor and turn on the feed from your helmet mic-cam, they let me do whatever I want.”

  She stops typing and unplugs the recorder from the laptop wire. She also unplugs a flash drive sticking out from her laptop.

  “Here,” she says, handing the drive and recorder to me. “You’ll like this stuff, and if you don’t, you should. It might expand your brain—what’s left after the concussions. It’ll definitely expand your music horizons.”

  I take the recorder and flash drive from her and notice how warm her hands are when we touch. “The flash drive can plug directly in the recorder for extra music storage or to swap out songs,” she says, and then reaches under her desk and passes me a nice set of earphones, similar to what she’s wearing. “These have noise reduction with bass-boost. When you listen to track three, make sure you crank up the bass. It’ll blow you away.”

  I nod.

  “Also, the microphone is built into the recorder. The sheet you gave me said ‘speech therapy,’ not that I was snooping, so if you need to record your voice, all you have to do is hit this button here and you’re good to go.”

  I nod again and heft the little device in my hand. It feels small enough I might lose it faster than my phone.

  “If you need help using it, you can come back here and I’ll show you. And I can give you more cool downloads once I refine your tastes.”

  “Duh-duh-do you hear everything in muh-muh-my helmet?” I ask, feeling suddenly exposed.

  “That’s right, my friend.” She smiles in a way that makes me bring a hand in front of my crotch. “Everything.”

  I gather up the dangling headphone cords and turn to leave with my new goodies.

  “Wait, you’ve got to sign the sheet or I’ll get in trouble,” Tina says. “I get class credit for running the AVT club. If you don’t sign for this stuff, Ms. Jinkle’s gonna get mad.”

  She thrusts a sheet at me and I reach for a short golf pencil on her desk and start to sign.

  “Seriously, track three will blow your balls off. It’s that good. I’ll slip another flash drive in your locker with more music.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thuh-thuh-thanks.”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t mention it.”

  35

  DANNY

  When our doorbell rings, I’m expecting a neighborhood Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness to take another stab at converting our household, but Coach Nelson standing there is a surprise.

  “Hey, kiddo, how ya doin’?” Coach asks. I’m not sure this is a trick question since I’ve skipped practice again, claiming to be sick.

  “All right,” I say, then rub my stomach and frown, hoping that conveys the proper amount of sickness to him.

  “Your parents home?”

  “No. My dad’s still at work.”

  “You got a minute?”

  I nod yes but keep my hand on my belly in case I need to fall back on a quick escape excuse. Coach Nelson doesn’t make a move to come into the house. Instead he turns around and walks back to his pickup truck with a gun rack in the back window and bumper stickers that read KILL YOUR TV and THOSE WHO CAN MAKE YOU BELIEVE ABSURDITIES CAN MAKE YOU COMMIT ATROCITIES. I follow him outside. He leans against the back part of his truck, not shadowed by our house and still catching rays from the falling sun.

  “Heard you had yourselves a good time up at the quarry,” he says while squinting out at the orange sky. He doesn’t see me nod yes and I don’t say anything. “A little bee told me you jumped off the cliff. First one over. Real gung ho. Figured Fisher or Bruce would be the first. Normally I wouldn’t recommend that, but since you’re still alive, consider me impressed.” He turns his gaze from the sun to me. “Didn’t know you had it in you. Fact is, it doesn’t seem like something you’d do at all. Thought you were a little more careful than that.”

  “You mean chicken,” I say, surprised by how angry I sound.

  “Not chicken.”

  “And weak. Same reason you knew they’d pick me to go against Jankowski on the bet in the weight room. You knew everyone thought me and Ronnie were little weaklings.”

  “And you showed them all, didn’t you?” Coach chuckles. “Never underestimate the power of underestimation,” he says, and slaps the panel of his truck. He’s the only one laughing. “We sure showed them.” He stops smiling when he realizes I’m fuming at him.

  “You set me up. Everyone was laughing at me that day. They couldn’t wait to see Tom cream me.”

  “But you kicked his butt, didn’t you?”

  I don’t answer back.

  “You know the crazy thing about life?” Coach asks, and now he’s looking off at the sun again. “On any given day, you have the chance to be a hero or a victim, predator or prey. Most times, circumstances are beyond your control. Other times, you got a choice but you think about it too much and you freeze up. Sometimes, though, you’re forced to react and it’s all instinct. May not make a damn bit of difference in a bad situation. But sometimes instinct squeezes the good out of you, forces you to be a hero before you even realize it. Danny, that day in the weight room, you were our hero. It was David versus Goliath in there and you nailed it. Now, what if I let you in on the p
lan and you listened to your fears, backed out before you even set foot in that weight room and had a chance to become a hero? I knew you were strong. I knew you’d win. I just had to make sure your brain didn’t cheat your heart out of the chance to become a hero.”

  “I don’t remember feeling much like a hero that day. Just tricked.”

  “Is that what’s really bothering you?” he asks. “I mean, besides Ronnie’s death? I understand you boys taking it hard but you can’t just fall apart.”

  “I’m not feeling very good. I don’t much feel like practicing.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just going to quit on the team?” He takes a second to glance at me before going back to squinting at the sun.

  “I don’t know,” I say. Truth is, I never thought about skipping practice as quitting on the team until Coach calls it that.

  “Danny, I can’t force you to come back. I can tell you that you’re throwing away promise and talent every day you miss practice. Maybe no one’s told you this lately but you’re good. Real good.”

  This kind of talk embarrasses me, especially since Coach doesn’t know the whole truth, doesn’t know how I abandoned my teammate, let him kill himself because I am a chicken and I am weak.

  “Danny, I’ve coached enough seasons, now, to recognize a kid that’s got some talent. I mean, hell, you’re only a sophomore and you got a shot at placing in the top three on high bar at state. I don’t know why you suddenly want to throw it all away. You think Ronnie would want his death to make you do that?”

  What Ronnie would want is for me to have spoken up for him when he was still alive. My stomach cramps for real at the thought. No faking necessary.

  “You’re on track to be a co-captain next year. The boys in that gym look up to you. What you do on that high bar scares and thrills all of us. You’re one of the best advertisements our team’s got, and not just for new guys, but to keep the guys we have now from drifting off next year. The way you’ve improved in the off-season, you could place top three all-around next year, too. Senior year, you could mop up. Maybe get a scholarship. I’ll be happy to write some letters to schools. I’ve got a few contacts and it’s not just from coaching.”