LIFTER

by Crawford Kilian

  “I didn’t think you could make hot chocolate and laugh that hard at the same time,” I grunted.

  “God knows it wasn’t easy,” Melinda said, and that set the two of them off again.

  Finally I drove Pat home. We didn’t say much, mostly because I was a little sulky. She gave me a friendly little kiss when I parked in front of her place.

  “Get some sleep, No-Pants,” she said, and slid out of the care before I could slug her.

  The rest of the night was long and bad. The jets kept booming overhead, and Marcus kept scratching himself, and I kept waking up every few minutes to see if Friday morning had finally arrived. When it did, I was too groggy to care.

  A breakfast that could have fed the whole team was set out for me on the kitchen table, and Melinda had deserted her study to keep me company. “Rah rah sis boom bah,” she greeted me.

  “Give me a break,” I groaned, and started eating to forget my troubles.

  It was a clear, cold morning, with the sun shining on the frost-tipped grass. The weather would be perfect for the game. Too bad; in pouring rain I could have pretended to slip and pull a tendon or something. I ran through various scenarios that would get me out of the game early and uninjured. None of them seemed very likely, but they kept me from facing reality until breakfast was all gone and Pat was on the phone, asking for a ride.

  “Sure,” I said. “But if I turn up in a dirty raincoat with nothing underneath, it’ll be all your fault.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she chirped, and hung up.

  I went out to Brunhilde and went over her whole interior, looking for a microphone. Nothing. I checked underneath. Nothing. The bug behind the fender was still there. Somehow I didn’t think it could pick up a conversation on the other side of a VW engine. That made me feel a little bit better.

  Pat looked tired when I came by, but she gave me a smile and a kiss as she got in.

  “Hi. All set for the game?”

  “Don’t talk to me about the game. I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it.”

  “You sure you aren’t making extra trouble for yourself by all this?”

  “Very sure.”

  “Okay. I won’t say anything more about it. All right?”

  I looked at her, a little surprised. “Sure. Thanks. You change your mind about it or something.”

  “I just figured you’ve got enough to worry about without me nagging at you. Let’s just get through the day.”

  “Hear, hear.” I patted her hand, feeling grateful.

  Terry High was even more wrought up than the day before. More banners, more blue-and-gold crepe streamers, more posters promising death to San Carlos, more people socking me in the arm and wishing me luck. I felt like one of the sacrificial victims the Aztecs used to pamper for a year before cutting them open.

  Eustis and Mason were absent, which made Gibbs a little annoyed with all of us. He was used to good attendance, and this week a lot of us had been out with one thing or another. Maybe he was edgy about the game also; anyway, he was a bit testy until we got into a discussion of quantum weirdness and everybody started having a good time. I don’t pretend to understand it all, but the idea of subatomic particles popping into existence out of nowhere, and not behaving like anything until someone’s watching them, is nothing but fun to people like the Awkward Sqaud. For us, the macroscopic world is already pretty strange, so weirdness on the quantum level seems perfectly natural.

  Around ten o’clock I went to the john and there, in his natural habitat, was Jason Murphy. He was leaning against the frosted glass of the window, looking out through a slightly open pane at the football field. When I came in, he glanced over his shoulder at me and went back to smoking and staring.

  “You going to be a big hero tonight,” he remarked.

  “Well, we’ll see.”

  “I been watching you in practice. You’re holding back. Real smart.”

  I finished my business and went to wash my hands. It was strange having an actual conversation with Jason - like talking to a doorknob and getting answers.

  “What d’you mean, holding back?”

  “You seen everybody watchin’ you in the stands. Guys with TV cameras. Lots of money going to ride on the game. They see you getting your ass whipped, they going to bet on San Carlos. Figure you just had a lucky night last week, ‘cause you sure don’t look like anything now.”

  “You think I”m holding back, huh?”

  “Man, I played you, remember? You can’t fool me. Nearly broke my neck. And you busted up those other guys, and even Quackenbush. So you figure you overdid it, huh, and you go easy all week. Tonight you do your thing, and San Carlos is dogmeat.”

  “Did you bet on me?”

  He grinned through a mouthful of smoke. “Two hundred, at three to one.”

  “You’re going to lose, Jason.”

  Jason flipped his butt into a urinal. “What to bet? Man, I used to think you were a wimp, you know? Now I know you’re the biggest con man around here. You got everybody faked out, even old Gibbsy. Everybody figures you’re just another jerk, huh, and you’re just puttin’ ‘em on.”

  “Sure, Jason.”

  “’Sure, Jason,’” he jeered. “How much did you bet on the game? Prob’ly over five hundred.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I can hear you lyin’, man. You can con everybody else, but not me. You just think about me when you’re out there tonight. Hey - I’ll be rootin’ for you.”

  He swaggered out, and after a moment I followed him. Two hundred dollars! That was another good reason to take a dive tonight. Jason got too much money from his father, but losing two hundred - after trashing the Trans Am - would make him too poor even to go for walks.

  Back in the lab, I found people fooling around with the computers. Bobby Gassaway was playing a game he’d designed, naturally called UFO. It was a steal from Space Invaders, but he’d worked up some nice effects and I stopped to tell him so.

  “My dad’s seeing the real thing every night,” Gassaway answered, pushing himself away from the keyboard and fixing his crazy eyes on me. “Last night there were three or four.”

  “Bull.”

  “Rick?” Gassaway’s voice lowered confidentially. “Come on, you can tell me. How you been doing it? Balloons, or model planes, or what?”

  I reached out to put a hand on the video terminal, and then changed my mind. “Gassaway,” I said slowly. “I am not responsible for every glitch in your dad’s radar. I haven’t been doing anything except minding my own business. And lately I’ve got so much help from other people who want to mind my business, too, that I hardly have time to go to the john. And you’ve been sticking the whole damn air force on me, which is scaring my mother, and they’re pestering my teachers, andᚓ”

  “What? I didn’t do any of that!”

  “No, you just told your dad that I must be screwing up his radar, and now I’m getting treated like some kind of spy. It’d be funny if all you clowns weren’t treating it so seriously. And it’s all because you’re about half a bubble off plumb about flying saucers. Well, tell your dad it was all a mistake, and ask him to call off his dogs.”

  “My dad doesn’t have anything to say about it anymore. It’s at the Pentagon level.”

  I gaped at him, and he looked stricken; he’d spilled the beans.

  The monster in my basement wanted to punch him out. After all, Gassaway had really been more of a threat to me than Jason Murphy ever had. I resisted the urge to kill, but not because I’m such a nice guy. Gibbs was holding the interoffice phone, and looking at us.

  “Stevenson.”

  “Sir.”

  “Got a minute?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. The principal would like to chat with you.”

  Mr Gordon worked in a surprisingly small cubicle tucked into one corner of the main office. He didn’t have a desk, just a plain table shoved into a corner and covered with neat stacks of paper.
The cubicle was just about big enough for the table, a couple of armchairs, and a couch, all surrounded by crammed bookshelves. Behind the couch, a window looked out onto a leafy green patio.

  He was sitting on the couch in his shirtsleeves, reading some thick photocopied document that he seemed glad to put down.

  “Hi, Rick! Have a seat.” He waved me into one of the armchairs. “Care for a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you, sir.”

  “Anything else? Sure? Well. I just wanted to talk for a minute before the game tonight, and wish you the best of luck. How are you feeling? Up for the game?”

  “Well, kind of nervous, I guess.”

  “No problem. Hey, the adrenaline will give you some extra push.” Mr Gordon folded his arms and crossed his legs and beamed at me, his freckled red face creasing like a concertina.

  “You know, Rick, you’re one of this school’s biggest success stories. Last year we were afraid you’d run yourself into more trouble than you could handle. But you’ve really turned yourself around this year. John Gibbs tells me you’re doing extremely well in his program, and now you’re showing us what an all-rounder you are. Frankly, if someone had told me a few weeks ago that you were going to be our next big football star, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

  “Neither would I,” I agreed.

  “But you know something? It’s not just the brilliant football you’ve been playing. It’s the way you’ve responded to your success.”

  “Sir?”

  “Like visiting that player in the hospital. Not many people would show that kind of consideration. Don’t ever lose that, huh?”

  “I’ll try not to, sir.”

  “I hope not. It shows a maturity that I wish more people had.” He looked over his shoulder at the patio for a moment. “I expect this has all put a lot of stress on you.”

  “Oh, some.”

  “More than that, I’ll bet. Hey, most people have a lot of trouble coping with, oh, fame, celebrity, whatever you want to call it. One day nobody knows you, and the next you’re in the papers. I’ts not easy to keep your perspective.”

  “Well…”

  “Have you felt a bit self-conscious lately? Kind of like a goldfish in a bowl?”

  “Yes, sir. I sure have.”

  “Kind of puts you off stride.”

  So that was where he was leading. “Maybe a little, sir.”

  “It’s showed up a bit in practice. At least to my untutored eye, you haven’t had quite the bounce you had last week.”

  “I guess not. It doesn’t worry me too much.”

  “Good! Good! That’s the attitude. Worry about it too much and you just make everything worse. Relax. Go with the flow, as we used to say.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mr Gordon.”

  He was developing the kind of fidgets that meant the interview was nearly over, and I was eager to end it, too. But first I had to ask him something.

  “Uh, sir - have a couple of guys from the air force been asking you about me?”

  He had the grace to grin and shrug. “Yeah. What a laugh. Hey, they think you’re fooling their radars. I told ‘em that was ridiculous.”

  “Well, sir, to tell you the truth, that’s what been really bugging me.” And I used the word “bugging” sincerely. “They really make me nervous. They even videotaped me.”

  “That’s really pushing it. That’s unacceptable. Well, I’ll call the base commander and ask him to lay off our star player.”

  “I hope that’ll work, sir. Bobby Gassaway just told me the Pentagon is involved now.”

  His jaw dropped; then he bristled. “I don’t care if the Kremlin is involved. You might also consider the possibility that Gassaway is just embroidering on the truth a little.” He looked ugly when he mentioned poor old Bobby. I guess he still remembered picking up that hot microphone and getting knocked across the main floor.

  “That’s what I suspect, too, Mr Gordon. But I was pretty nervous even before he told me that.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll get this all straightened out. Now I’d better let you go. We’ll see you tonight, all right? Boy, I’m really looking forward to it.”

  Somehow I managed a grisly little smile and left. Everybody in the world seemed to be looking forward to tonight, except me.

  After school, Gibbs called a short strategy meeting. He’d had his own spies out casing San Carlos, and they gave us detailed reports on what to look out for. Everybody was tense but up, eager to get at them. It even began to get to me; I recalled that I had, after all, survived the week’s practices and even gained some yardage. Maybe I’d survive after all.

  When the session was over, Gibbs kept me back. We were alone in the locker room, sitting on a bench in a thin mist of steam and sweat.

  “Mr Gordon tells me the Pentagon’s on your case now.”

  “That’s what Bobby told me, sir.”

  “Well, we took it pretty seriously. Phoned the base and talked to General Parrish, the CO. He doesn’t know anything about it. Matter of fact, when I told him about your two fans from intelligence, he sounded a little embarrassed. Said they’d be reassigned right away.”

  “Wow!” I rocked back, slapping my hands together. “Wow, that’s great. Thank you, sir.”

  “Glad to oblige.” Gibbs leaned back against a locker and stretched out his bad leg. “You’re under enough pressure without those two. I just wish you’d let up on some of the pressure you put on yourself.”

  “Sir?”

  “You have found out something, haven’t you? Like the hero of your story. And you don’t know what the heck it is, or how to handle it.”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think I understand.”

  Gibbs looked at me and smiled a little, as if he expected me to play dumb and didn’t take it personally. “Stevenson, I’ve known you ever since you came to Terry High. You’re big, and you’re fairly strong, but you aren’t any first-class athlete. But you discovered something that lets you perform like one. At first I thought it was some kind of drug, but anything that could speed you up like that would have bad side effects. Besides, you told me you weren’t on drugs, and you were telling the truth.”

  I felt a strong urge to get up and run to the nearest exit. Gibbs voice went on, calm and steady.

  “That just meant you’d discovered something else. Maybe you came up with a way to increase your neurons fire at, or some kind of self-hypnosis. You had that biofeedback device; maybe it’s involved.”

  I could hardly breathe. How had he come so close?

  “Whatever it is, it’s got you scared and you’re not using it any more. Or it’s all used up. Whatever, you’re just yourself again. Right?”

  I stared at the floor and shrugged. “This is all just speculation, Mr Gibbs. It’s kind of funny, but that’s all.”

  He looked a little annoyed. “Stevenson, this is not speculation. Last week I watched you run at speeds that nobody can reach unassisted. I worked out the speed you were travelling when you hit Al Suarez. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t put yourself in the hospital with him. You must’ve been doing over thirty miles per hour when you hit Suarez.”

  “Aw, really, Mr Gibbsᚓ”

  “Just for an instant, I’ll grant you - which means you had some kind of jet-assist. Now, I don’t like coming up with a number like thirty miles per hour, because I can’t come up with a decent hypothesis to explain it. But I’ve observed you, and I’ve observed what you can do. Whatever you’re doing is real. I wish it wasn’t, because it does not explains so much that maybe everything I think I know about physics is wrong.”

  “Sir, I really don’tᚓ”

  “You haven’t been doing it this week, have you? Scared you might hurt somebody else like Suarez and Smith?”

  “Mr Gibbs, to tell you the truth, I’m more scared that somebody else might hurt me.” I laughed, trying to make it a joke, but he didn’t smile.

  “You’ve got your reasons for what you’re doing, St
evenson. I have to respect them because I respect you. Now, whatever you’ve found out is something that makes you one hell of a football player. Without it, you’re a nice guy on the third string.”

  I bridled at that, but Gibbs ignored my indignant expression.

  “Now, I don’t have room on this team for a third-stringer. If you want to get off the team, you’re off. If you want to stay, I expect you to give all you’ve got - whatever it is.”

  He was giving me back my freedom! I couldn’t believe it. I could pack it in, walk out, and watch the game on cable television.

  –But I couldn’t. I’d feel like a world-historic creep. Melinda would be crushed. Pat would be worse: She’d be understanding. All the guys on the team would decide I just didn’t have it. People wouldn’t punch me in the arm anymore. I could go back to my job, except that Willy would wonder why I’d been such a quitter when I could’ve become a pro.

  I wondered if this was how it felt to be corrupted: you suddenly find that something you take for granted is really important to you, so important that you’re ready to sell out to keep it or get it back. Until a few days ago, being a big jock had meant nothing to me. Now I was discovering that it meant a lot, and I didn’t have the guts to give it up.

  “Mr Gibbs - maybe I’m just a third-stringer, but I’ve been doing my best all week. At least give me this one chance, okay? Even if you only put me in for a couple of minutes, when it doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to be on the team at first, but now, at least I don’t want to let down the other guys.”

  “Are you going to do your thing, or not?”

  “I said I’ve been doing my best!” I yelled. That surprised me more than it did him. “Just don’t lay any guilt trip on me, Mr Gibbs. Let me just get through this game. And then someday maybe I can explain what this is about.”

  He studied me for a moment. “All right, Stevenson. You play this game. If you don’t do well you’re out, and no hard feelings on either side. Deal?”

  “Deal, sir.” My hand disappeared inside his.

  That night in the locker room everyone was blasted to bits on adrenaline and anticipation. A radio was playing loud rock, but the guys were louder. Despite all the shouting and grab-arse, we all got fitted up really fast, and stood around doing knee bends and running in place and listening to the crowd noises drifting in from outside. Across the hall, the San Carlos team were equally wound up. Finally we all lined up in the hall to get ready to run out. The San Carlos guys in their white-and-red uniforms ignored us, except for me. They looked at me a lot, their eyes bright and calculating, working out how long I’d last before they took me out of the game.