Hit Count

by Chris Lynch

  In a way, I felt even worse.

  Because without the symptoms I had the clarity. The realization of the gaping empty in front of me. Football and I had been forcibly separated, and I’d bet football didn’t like it any more than I did.

  Okay then. So, Coach said clean slate next September. Regardless of right then, I had no choice but to set sights on that slate, that month.

  Even if right then, that seemed near impossible. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch the conference championship game, which we lost. Which they lost. So then nobody was playing for the rest of the year, which should have been a consolation since I wasn’t actually missing anything. It wasn’t.

  On Wednesday, about a week and a half after getting fired from the team, I sat down on the wall in front of the school and just occupied space there. Vacant, stupid, useless. I still kept feeling like I wanted to cry, and that made me want to punch myself in the face. If I did either or both of those things, there on the front wall of the school, I could safely expect things to deteriorate further for me.

  And then I remembered. Football season was over. For me it was already over a week before then. I took out my phone and started punching at it furiously with my big, stupid finger.

  I don’t play football anymore, I texted Sandy. We hadn’t communicated in how long?

  Thirty seconds later my phone rang.

  A five-­year-­old would have been embarrassed by the sad, cracking little laugh that came out of me at the mere sight of her name on the screen.

  ***

  “You can hardly expect me to celebrate,” I said.

  It was Friday, and we were in that same old place in front of that same old pizza because Sandy said the same old place was a good place for a new start. It had been almost too easy for us to get it together again, for apologies—okay, apology—to be offered and accepted, for us to resume us-­ing. I was so pleased about that outcome that I was happy to ignore that it seemed to be connected in Sandy’s mind to the idea that football was over forever.

  “Not at all,” she said. But she slurped her drink quite dramatically. Sandy was no slurper. This was her victory dance, her touchdown spike, not over me but over the game itself. “God, your mom must be over the moon! I mean, not that you got hurt, of course. But that you won’t be getting hurt like that anymore. Oh my, she must be just . . .”

  Sandy’s voice trailed off as she read the clearly defined rotten sonness on my facial features. I had not, in fact, told my mother. I wasn’t planning to, either. It was just a temporary suspension—no need to worry her.

  “You have got to be kidding me, Arlo.”

  “I guess I was waiting for the right time?”

  Sandy could combine a slightly tilted head, an arched eyebrow, and pursed lips in such a way it amounted to a brutal and sustained face-­slapping.

  “Y’know, Arlo, you just get more attractive by the syllable.”

  “I’ll tell her, I’ll tell her.” I wouldn’t.

  “What’s stopping you? If you don’t call her, I just might. We did exchange numbers, you know.”

  “No, please. I really want to do it in person. I want to see her smile.” I knew I wouldn’t do it, though.

  She picked up another slice of pizza and then aimed the sharp end at me. “So the possibility remains that you might be a human somethingorother after all.”

  “Now there’s something to celebrate,” I said, pointing a slice right back at her. I felt like a rat. I felt like I was making the right decision.

  Bam!

  It started a few weeks after the season ended. By early spring the fear had taken over. The fear that I might not ultimately be able to prove I was sound enough of mind and body to ever be allowed to take the field again. That I had already delivered my last ferocious tackle. That I would be forbidden to do what I do best. What I do better than anybody. The thing I was born to do.

  That was not the way this was supposed to play out.

  It was unreal, was what it was.

  Except my fear was real.

  So if I was going to put things right again and get back in the game, job one was going to be dealing with this fear. And the only way I ever knew for dealing with fear was to break its friggin’ head.

  I needed contact. I needed smash. I needed Bam!

  ***

  “I think your brains are even more scrambled than anybody knows,” Dinos said as he followed me, uninvited, out toward the lacrosse field.

  “And I think you should mind your own business,” I said.

  “I am. My friends are my business and you’re my friend, so I’m minding you. You need minding. Why are they even letting you play anyway?”

  “Because I’m Starlo,” I said, turning to face him just as we reached the running track. I put my hand flat on his chest.

  “No, you’re not. You’re a regular human earthling with a brain box that needs protecting—from yourself, mostly.”

  “Dinos,” I said, bringing my second hand up alongside the one already gently pushing him away, “I appreciate your unnecessary concern. Now go away.”

  And, kind of surprisingly, he did just that. But when he spun away and all I had of him was his angry back, I felt a little jolt of something that was almost like regret.

  So I spun away in the other direction, just as quickly, and concentrated on the crazy excited feeling I had in my gut.

  The idea started forming when I ran into some of the defensive backfield guys from the football team in the weight room. They were hitting it like the season was starting up again in a week. Only it had nothing to do with football. They were getting into lacrosse shape. I saw them dashing between strength workouts out on the field and then back to the weights without pausing, and I caught a rush of the same adrenaline and asked if I could join.

  Just for the conditioning. Those boys were into harsh conditioning, and that looked very attractive to me.

  Bit by bit they let me in. I was never a real part of the team, just a kind of unofficial associate, training partner—all under-the-radar stuff.

  Then I started playing a little. Just a little. No contact. Coach Carey made that clear. No contact for me, but as long as I wanted to be an enthusiastic supporter of what his team was doing—well, the old Starlo glow wasn’t completely gone yet, so it was win-­win. Even my mother and Sandy were okay with it because of the no contact.

  Except me. I wanted to play so badly. I knew I could play, and play well, and so did the guys on the team. But rules were rules.

  It was an intrasquad game, a Captain’s Practice, run by the players while the coach was away for the afternoon. In other words, an open door.

  It was one of the best days I ever had. The conditioning paid off, and I was faster and more flexible than I had ever been, less bulked but just as hard. The old football adrenaline came flooding back—and even better, it was like the beginning of football all over again, the newness, the something to prove. I would show them all they were wrong.

  I spent the whole time flying up the left side, cutting in and across the front of the goal. I did it with the ball, without the ball—no matter. Guys were hacking on my arms, cross-­checking me on my back, my face.

  It was heaven. This was going to be my new home, my beloved foster home, until football was ready to take me back. It was coming to me so naturally, so easily, it was as if everything had been set up perfectly to help me get back to where I wanted to be.

  Until, of course, it wasn’t set up that way at all.

  I saw a guy on my team get absolutely crumpled as he carried the ball across the middle of the field. A beautiful crunch that left him flat and the ball bouncing. Until I collected it up and barreled like a thoroughbred toward the goal. There was nobody between me and the goalie, who I saw coming out, coming out toward me.

  I was looking right at him. He was in his squat, deep inside his protective padding. I actually felt a little sorry for him. A little. He had no chance.

  Other than the b
ig chance.

  I honestly didn’t know they could do that.

  He played me some possum, stayed down low but came forward, until I was about two yards in front of him. Then . . . man, the squat bastard nailed me. Up out of the crouch like a dwarf being fired from a cannon. Clever and nasty, he caught me with both forearms in my face mask, elbows right in my collarbones.

  My lower half kept travelling forward, while my head whipped backward right into the ground like a pile driver.

  I don’t know how long I was out, but by the time my vision had just about cleared, my eyes were bringing me the most unwelcome sight.

  “The thing is,” I said to Coach Carey, “I was just caught off guard. That won’t happen again.”

  “No, son, it won’t,” he said sternly from the wrong end of a flashlight.

  ***

  “How am I ever supposed to leave you here without me next year?” Dinos asked. “You’re a hazard to yourself.”

  We were in the stands at the rink, watching a scrimmage between our school’s varsity and jayvee hockey teams. The style of play was physical, almost as thumping as our football games.

  “I don’t need you,” I said, mock-­laughing. It was a rare occurrence when one of us was laughing and it wasn’t Dinos. It was real concern I was seeing. I hated real concern. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, Arlo, you’re insane.”

  I wasn’t insane. My plan had a totally reasonable goal. Even if it was a little crazy.

  “I just want to play football again, man,” I said.

  “So wait for football season to come around again. Let yourself heal up. Train through the summer like always. Then August will be here before you know it, then you can let the staff check you out and take it from there.”

  I was already facing away from him, watching the action. There was a fantastic three-­man crack-­up in the corner where two ballsy jayvee defensemen rocked the big varsity left winger into the corner boards. They smashed into the glass and made such a racket I had to jump out of my seat and roar.

  “How great was that?” I said as I took my seat again. There were only maybe a half dozen of us in the arena, making all the sounds echo around at ten times the decibels. I noticed several of the skaters looking up in our direction and then realized that applied to my noise as well. I waved.

  “It was a big bang,” Dinos said flatly.

  “I know a few of these guys,” I said. “I’ve been talking to them.”

  He let out a long blast of exhale. “Yeah, Arlo. Your ambitions are kind of obvious at this point. You’ve got to stop, man, you really do.”

  “What? Stop what?”

  I looked at him, but he was looking off, at something or somebody else, and made a big thumbs-­up. I turned to see Coach Fisk and Coach Carey climbing the arena steps toward us.

  “What did you do, ya rat?” I said to Dinos while smiling politely at the grim reapers coming my way.

  “I did what anybody who really cares should do.”

  “Fink.”

  “Friend.”

  Just as the two were reaching us, Mr. Grant, the hockey coach, turned from behind the bench and threw his own big hearty wave at us. He was adding his endorsement to whatever was going to happen here before turning back to the job before him.

  The two coaches sat down on the seatbacks one row down from the chairs occupied by me and Dinos the fink.

  “There’s been a lot of talk about you, Arlo,” Coach Carey said.

  “Which is, of course, nothing new for you,” Coach Fisk added. “Although, I suppose it’s a little different from what you’ve been used to. For once, people aren’t wanting more from you but less.”

  “A lot less,” Dinos chirped.

  “A lot less of you right now wouldn’t be a bad thing,” I snapped.

  “Easy there, son,” Coach Fisk said. “You haven’t got a better friend in the world than that guy right there, as far as I can see. Horsefeathers as a football player at this point but a four-­star friend.”

  “Thanks there, Coach,” Dinos said. “Way to keep me from getting a big head.”

  Everybody automatically looked at Dinos’s epic skull.

  “That horse appears to have left the barn already,” Coach Fisk said. Everybody chuckled, and I forced myself to join in.

  There was another loud crash into the boards just below us, a whistle, and a lot of stick-­clashing and bellowing sounds.

  “We’re not here to talk about Dinos’s dome, are we?” I said when the noise died down.

  “No, Arlo,” Coach Carey said, “we’re not. Are you familiar with the concept of Hit Count?”

  “No, sir. But whatever it is, it sounds like I’m your man.”

  “What?” he said. “Wait, oh, that was a good one. Only . . . you’re not joking, are you?”

  “Okay, let’s get to the point,” Coach Fisk said before I had to answer. “We have to take this kind of thing seriously, Arlo. There are only so many blows to the head anyone, even a strapping young anyone like yourself, can withstand without risking permanent—”

  “I don’t mind, really, Mr. Fisk. I swear, I hardly even feel it most of the time.”

  “Arlo,” he said, holding both hands out in front of him as if I might come bursting up out of my seat. “You are at the limit for Hit Count this year. We are shutting you down, at least until next fall. You are not going to be allowed to so much as train alongside any school teams this year, for your own good. You will be evaluated at the beginning of football season, and we’ll take it from there. If you are caught sneaking into any more banned activities, then we’ll have to disqualify you for next year as well. Is that clear?”

  Even as he was speaking to me I was leaning over slightly to get a glimpse of the action on the ice as it seemed to be really heating up. He put his face in mine and made a close-­up effort to get eye contact, reminding me of some of those postimpact exams he’d put me through.

  I focused my eyes on his. “It’s clear, sir.”

  “Good stuff. Just concentrate on your studies, your extracurricular things, your love life. Enjoy yourself.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do until you guys stopped me,” I said, grinning like maybe a joke between us would clear everything up and they’d remove all my restrictions just like that.

  He grinned right back, stuck out his hand. We shook.

  Mr. Carey stuck out his hand. We shook.

  And that was that.

  And the fear came flooding back.

  “So you going to spend the rest of your senior year following me around and reporting any suspicious activities back to the administration?” I said to Dinos. I couldn’t look at him.

  “No,” he said. “But I would if I thought it was necessary.”

  “Why don’t you just leave me alone?” Before I throw you down the damn stairs already.

  “Why? Because alone you’re making bizarre decisions. I mean, what are we even doing here? You can’t even skate.”

  “I can skate.”

  “Yeah, like a guy who takes his girlfriend to the rink once a year around Christmas. But not like a hockey player can skate. Arlo, man it’s like you’ve got some kind of disease, like you’re the town drunk getting thrown out of one dive bar after another until there are none left that’ll let you in. You have to listen to what people are saying, and stop taking stupid risks.”

  The sound between us now was beautiful. It was all steel-­blades-­slicing-­ice on a three-­on-­one break. It was sticks cracking sticks, of a wicked wrist shot deflecting off the goalie’s blocker and then banging high off the plexiglass behind him. Of a defenseman smacking the loose puck around the boards and out of the zone. Such better sounds than listening to Dinos’s crap theories about me.

  “Where are you going?” he said as I abruptly got up and went down the stairs. Since he would not back off, one of us was going down the stairs, one way or another.

  “Not going anywhere, pal. Just keep on talki
ng. . . .”

  ***

  “It’s probably terrible of me to feel this way,” Sandy said after I had apparently done some moaning, “but I think it’s kind of sweet to find you feeling sorry for yourself.”

  I didn’t fill her in on all the details, obviously, but I had let her know that my football ban was now extended across all official school sports activities.

  “Well, that would at least make it one of us feeling sorry for me,” I said.

  “I am sorry, Arlo,” she said, lifting up my arm and draping it over her shoulders, which I would normally have done myself at this point, except I wasn’t feeling the sympathy I wanted. “But I’m also not sorry. For once the school sports machine seems to be looking out for the vulnerable individual.”

  Bad. Bad words. Bad timing.

  “I am not a vulnerable individual,” I snapped at her, very unlike my normal Sandy tone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, soothingly. “I didn’t mean anything by it, you know that.”

  “Okay,” I said. I removed my dead-­weight arm and got up from the porch. “I’ll talk to you later,” and for the second time in the past hour I found myself walking away from somebody I knew I shouldn’t want to walk away from.

  Toxic Space

  Fine.

  At the end of the day you’ve only got yourself anyway. Even in a team game, you are the only person you are ever going to be able to fully, absolutely count on. Anybody else could screw up or fall down and leave you exposed, but you are not going to do that to you, ever.

  So I powered up on my training one more time. By myself. By myself I was clearly focused, and could tailor workouts to my own needs, desires, goals.

  I was a linebacker. I am a linebacker.

  I hit the weights harder than I have ever hit them before. For three weeks I did almost nothing but lift and lift some more. Some sprints on the track, but mostly those were just to break things up, and to give the oxygen a chance to return to my upper body again. As soon as I felt it coming on, I stopped the running and got my hungry self back pumping the iron. Felt good, too. Like a bull sea lion hobbling off the rocks and back into the ocean where he was a force.