by Tim Green
"Uh, yeah," Uncle Gus said.
That night, as they drove home from their last job, Uncle Gus drank a can of beer and complained through his cigarette smoke about the new arrangement for Ty that would begin in just two weeks. Uncle Gus argued with himself over what had taken place as if Ty and Charlotte weren't even there.
"I want to be in a fantasy football league," Uncle Gus whined in a high-pitched voice, mocking Ty. "I have to be on the team.
"I have to listen to that crap?" Uncle Gus asked, looking at his own face in the rearview mirror. "Lucy all of a sudden runs my business, too? I don't pay him enough when I bet on the stupid Yankees?
"No, no," he argued, drawing hard on his cigarette and squinting with one eye at the dark road ahead.
"This could be big. This could make us a lot of money. Lucy's giving us a chance here. We need to take it. We don't need the kid to get the job done. Besides, he'll only be a couple hours late. Football season doesn't go year-round."
Then Uncle Gus scrunched up his face. He shot an evil look into the mirror and asked, "Who's going to clean the crappers? Who? Huh?"
And so it went, the entire trip home. When they arrived, Uncle Gus shut off the engine. When he opened the truck door, he fell out onto the muddy ground. A stream of curses spewed from his mouth as he struggled to his feet, steadying himself on the hood of the truck, and staggered toward the house. Ty and Charlotte sat still in the cab, waiting for Uncle Gus to get inside before they dared to follow. They knew better than to get in his way after he'd had a few beers.
Charlotte removed the iPod earpieces from her ears. When she spoke, it startled Ty.
"How did you do it?" she asked in a whisper.
"Get it so I can come late and miss Fridays?" Ty asked.
"You're missing Fridays?" Charlotte said, her eyebrows climbing her forehead. "Some partner you are."
"Now we're partners?" Ty said.
"I don't even talk to anyone else," Charlotte said, slapping the dashboard.
"Yeah," Ty said, "well, that's not normal."
"What is normal about this family?" Charlotte asked, throwing her hands in the air. "The Porta Potti they make you use in the woods? The beer? The gambling? Leaving the windows shut when he smokes those cancer sticks?"
"That doesn't mean you have to clam up."
A strange smile curled the corners of Charlotte's lips and she said, "I got that from your mother."
Ty stiffened and said, "Don't talk about her."
"It's true. That family reunion in the Poconos?" Charlotte said. "I heard her say to your brother, 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.' Well, I'm not saying anything then. You see the crap I have to put up with. What's there to say? Now you're slithering out of it and I'm still stuck."
"I'm not slithering," Ty said. "They've got some fantasy football thing they want me to help with."
"Why can't I help?"
Ty glanced at the front door. Uncle Gus had fallen off the step and was flailing about in the bushes.
"If I could help you, I would," Ty said. "He's not going to go for it and you know it. You should have seen his face when Lucy told him I had to play football."
"Did the vein in the middle of his forehead bulge out all purple?" she asked.
"Kind of."
"Good," she said. "One day maybe it will bust wide open."
"Don't say that," Ty said.
Charlotte snorted and crossed her bony arms like the legs of a spider.
It was Ty's last Friday when he came out of the bathroom at the Nook with a toilet brush in one hand and a bucket in the other and stood face-to-face with a tall blond woman wearing sunglasses.
"I want a bagel," she said, examining the underside of one of her long pink nails.
Uncle Gus had gone across the street for a beer, and Charlotte was back in the kitchen.
"Uh," Ty said, "this place is closed."
"The door was open," the woman said in a snotty tone. She wore an expensive running suit and shoes. Dark roots shone beneath her long blond hair. Her lipstick matched her nails, and her teeth glowed white in a mean smile. "So just give me a raisin bagel with cream cheese. I'll take a black coffee and an orange juice, and make sure you wash your hands first."
Ty looked at his toilet brush. His cheeks warmed, and the bell on the door behind the woman tinkled.
"Hurry up, Mom," said a voice Ty recognized even before he saw the face. "We're gonna be late."
Then, Calvin West stepped out from behind the woman. His face went blank with shock at the sight of Ty, then his eyes went from the brush, to the bucket, to the bathroom, and back to Ty as his wicked grin grew.
"Hey, Ty Lewis," Calvin said, "cleaning the crappers. You don't want him touching your food. Let's go."
"Be quiet, Calvin. I'm hungry."
Charlotte appeared from the kitchen and stood next to Ty, absorbing the situation.
"I told them the place is closed," Ty told her under his breath.
"I want a raisin bagel," Calvin's mom said. "You don't have to be a Phi Beta Kappa to do that."
Charlotte didn't say anything. She turned and dug into the big trash can behind the counter, coming up with someone's half-eaten raisin bagel with cream cheese spurting out the side. She plopped it down on a napkin and set it on the counter, then looked up at Calvin's mom with a deadpan face.
"Enjoy," she said.
Then she took Ty's arm and dragged him into the back until they heard the woman utter a curse and then the door jingling as they left.
"That was Calvin West," Ty said, too breathless to appreciate Charlotte's joke.
"Big deal, Calvin West. If he bothers you," she said, putting her earpieces in and picking up a dishcloth, "you let me know."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE JETS BROKE TRAINING camp, and the team gave the players the weekend off before the regular season and the real games began. Thane got permission from Uncle Gus to take Ty with him house hunting on Saturday afternoon. He showed up driving a new Escalade. Uncle Gus ran his hands greedily over the shiny black surface of the hood as he admired the machine and told Thane not to bring Ty home too late, as if he really cared.
Inside the truck, Ty gave his brother a kiss on the cheek and a hug. In a whisper he asked if Thane could bring Charlotte, too.
"Yeah, sure," Thane said, and he leaned out his window. "Uncle Gus, can Charlotte come with us?"
Uncle Gus had the garden hose going on a crab apple tree. He stiffened, then a smile grew on his face. "We can all join you, sure."
"Naw, just the kids," Thane said. "I can't take you guys. I don't want the real estate agent to think I'm some kind of baby who can't pick out his own house."
Uncle Gus didn't get the answer out of his mouth before the front door shot open and Charlotte streaked past him, flung open the back door, and dove into the truck.
"Great," Thane said, and they rumbled away down the rutted track, swishing through the dusty green weeds.
As they pulled out onto the open road, Ty looked back at Charlotte, who smiled so big and so real that she looked like a girl with a storybook life. He winked at her and then rolled down the window and let the wind blow across his face.
They met Linda Roche, Thane's real estate agent, at the highway exit for Summit and followed her Mercedes through a series of twisting roads before they came to a hilly, tree-filled development with houses that rivaled the size of Halpern Middle School. Linda pulled up a driveway and got out in front of a gray stone house with a slate roof.
"There's five garage doors," Charlotte said, blinking and counting them off with a finger.
They got out and followed Linda past the towering columns and in through the front doors.
"You could play football in here," Ty said, his voice echoing off the empty walls and the wood floors.
"It's only eighty-two hundred feet," Linda said to Thane. "At two-seven, it's the best bargain in northern New Jersey. The owner's wife missed her family and they m
oved back to Brazil."
"Two-seven, as in million?" Ty asked, raising his eyebrows.
"It's an investment," Thane said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around. "Where's the TV room?"
"There's a home theater on the lower level," Linda said, leading them into the spacious, glass-lined back of the house that overlooked an immense grass yard.
"Here's the living room. Right off your kitchen so whoever cooks can be involved with whatever's going on."
"So, like, when I put a can of SpaghettiOs in the microwave, I won't miss a single play on Monday Night Football?" Thane asked.
Linda looked to see if he was serious and slowly said, "Something like that. The master bedroom is on the first floor."
"That's good," Thane said, following her into the big bedroom overlooking the back lawn and through a maze of closets and the bathroom. "If my knee swells up on me. No stairs."
"Is your knee okay?" Ty asked.
"Yeah, I'm just saying, in case."
"His and hers bathrooms," Linda said, leading them. "Water closets. Walk-in showers. Tub for her. Sauna for you."
"What her?" Ty asked, wrinkling his forehead.
Thane frowned and shook his head. "There's no her. Relax."
"Yet," Linda said, raising a finger in the air.
"Margery at my office wants your number."
"Yeah, she's cute," Thane said with a nod. "Let's look upstairs."
They followed Linda up the back set of stairs and down a long hallway full of bedrooms.
"I know it's more than you need," Linda said, "but for resale, a house this big needs lots of bedrooms."
"Man," Charlotte said, peering into a bedroom that had its own tiled bathroom. "Ty and I should come live with you."
Ty flashed a scowl at his cousin, forced a laugh, and said, "She's kidding. Kids need a mom, right? Aunt Virginia cooking and cleaning for us. All that stuff."
"Her, clean for us?" Charlotte said. "And cooking? We'd do better at McDonald's on a bad day."
"She's kidding," Ty said to his brother, patting him on the back. "We love Aunt Virginia and Uncle Gus. How about those caramel apples she makes?"
Ty wheeled on Charlotte, glowering and holding his finger up to his mouth to be quiet. She shrugged and looked at him like she didn't understand, but she nodded her head anyway.
"Yeah," Thane said, looking up at the vaulted ceilings and studying the chandelier as they wound their way down the big spiral staircase. "I used to complain about our mom's cooking. Remember that goulash stuff with the elbow macaroni?"
Thane stopped at the bottom of the steps, looked up at them, and in a soft voice said, "Then you don't have it and you miss it, even if it was bad. Right, Ty?"
Ty looked at his shoes, and they all stood still for a moment, until Charlotte said, "I didn't mean to--"
Thane waved his hand in the air and started off again. "No, don't worry. It's good to talk about her sometimes, even when we're kidding about her goulash. She'd get a kick out of it."
"What do you think?" Linda asked as they wandered into the kitchen area.
Thane looked around and said, "I'll take it."
"Well, I have a lot of other places," Linda said. "I didn't mean it like that."
"No, I'll take it," Thane said. "Microwave. Home theater. Big shower. That yard is big enough for me to set up a JUGS machine and run patterns. It's perfect."
"I'll draw up the papers," Linda said, the look of shock fading.
"And you two," Thane said, pointing to Ty and Charlotte and then flicking his finger toward the stairs. "Go pick one of those bedrooms. I know you can't move in, but when you come to visit I want you both to have a room. We'll get some furniture and computers and stuff. A couple TVs. Linda, you've got a decorator for me, right? Make sure she talks to the kids."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TY GOT OFF THE bus on the first day of school and hurried to Coach V's office next to the gym. Coach V sat typing on his computer until Ty cleared his throat.
"Hey, Lewis," Coach V said, swiveling around in his squeaky metal chair. "You have a good summer?"
"Yes," Ty said, "and I can play football."
Coach V frowned and said, "What about the family business?"
"My uncle is going to pick me up after he cleans Lucy's," Ty said, and saw the look of confusion on the coach's face. "It's a bar. Kind of a sports bar."
"Oh, well, good," Coach V said, handing him a stapled stack of papers. "Here's the new playbook. You can have the first copy. It's not that much different from the one I gave you in the spring."
"I gave that back to you," Ty said. "Remember?"
"What happened?" Coach V asked. "Your uncle get religion? Figured football would save your soul?"
"Something like that," Ty said. "Well, I gotta get to homeroom."
"Hey, Lewis," Coach V said.
Ty turned around at the door.
"You're in for good this time, right?"
Ty nodded.
"So I'm putting you in as my starting wide receiver, the Z," Coach V said. "I can still see the catch you made in that passing scrimmage."
The coach gave him a thumbs-up and Ty hurried off to his homeroom.
As Ty pushed open the wooden locker room door, he could hear the buzz of his teammates. But as he walked into the throng, it got suddenly quiet and the crowd opened up, making a clear path to the locker he had claimed during gym class. The smirking faces were contagious, and Ty began to smile himself as he approached whatever it was sticking up from the bench in front of his locker. A notebook-paper sign flew like a flag from the top of a wooden handle. Below, the smooth rubber cup of the plunger stood planted on the wooden seat.
The words scrawled on the paper in blue pen came into focus:
Ty fought to keep the corners of his mouth up in their smile. He blinked back the tears of shame and bit into his lower lip.
The crowd broke out into an uproar of laughter, punctuated by bursts of glee.
"Toilet man!"
"Come clean my crapper!"
"Toilet cleaner!"
"I heard your job stinks!"
"Toy-tee-Ty!"
"Watch out, don't let him touch you!"
"Turd Man!"
"Wash your hands, Turd Man!"
The locker room door slammed open, smashing into the metal cage and sending a shiver through the room that left it suddenly silent except for Ty's single sniff.
"What's going on?" Coach V asked, glowering. "You sound like a pack of hyenas."
Calvin West stepped from the crowd into the space in front of the plunger, hiding it from Coach V.
"We're excited, Coach," Calvin said, grinning at his teammates, who chuckled nervously. "Lewis gives us that speed in the passing game you're always talking about, right?"
Coach V looked at Calvin sideways and puckered his lips, then nodded and said, "Well, get your gear on and let's get out there."
When the coach walked out of the locker room, the team erupted in nervous laughter. Calvin reached behind him, picked up the plunger, and held it out to Ty.
"Your scepter, O King of the Turds."
A fresh wave of laughter rushed over Ty. He slapped the plunger aside and pushed past Calvin West, opening his locker and focusing on tying the cleats Thane had bought him.
He ignored their words and he ignored their glee, knowing that anything he did would only keep them at it. After a few minutes, even Calvin turned his attention to getting ready for practice. They had plenty of gear to put on: knee, thigh, and hip pads along with a protective cup; rib and shoulder pads along with a helmet up top. Soon the locker room bubbled with the sound of popping snaps, clicking plastic, and players slapping each other's pads.
Ty wriggled into his equipment, then slipped out through the door and onto the practice field. Players clustered like cows in a pasture, one big group and several smaller ones milling about aimlessly, waiting for the coach's signal. Coach V looked at his watch and blew the whistle, yellin
g at them to all take a lap and then line up for stretching. Ty fell into the slow-moving mass and headed up the sideline. By the time he reached the corner of the end zone, the players had spread out according to their speed, the smaller skill players up front and most of the linemen trailing behind, anchored by Kevin Tully, a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound eighth grader with a bulging gut.
Only a handful of players ran in front of Ty. He bumped up his speed and began to pass them, one by one. Calvin West ran second from the front. Ty hesitated, and Calvin looked back over his shoulder.
"Go ahead," Calvin said, huffing, "pass me, Turd Man."
Ty's brain grew hot and he kicked in a burst of speed, looping around Calvin to the outside, ready to make him look silly.
On his way past, Ty saw Calvin kick out with his right foot. He felt a sharp pain in his ankle, lost his balance, and tumbled toward the ground.
He hit the turf and saw stars. Someone else running past tramped on his hand with their cleats, stumbling into the line and knocking down a bunch of other players. Laughter mixed with grumbles, and from the middle of the field Coach V screamed at them to stop fooling around. Ty got up slow, cradling his aching hand and limping back into the middle of the line, not just humiliated, but hurting.
He didn't think things could get any worse.
He was wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AFTER STRETCHING AND AGILITY drills, Ty followed the other receivers as well as the running backs to a skeleton passing drill where they ran patterns and caught balls thrown to them by the quarterbacks. Ty ran the patterns well but had difficulty hanging on to the passes because of his throbbing hand. That wasn't the bad part.
The bad part came when they began to work on blocking.
"When we run the ball," Coach V said in a voice as rough as broken concrete, "you ladies can't just stand there. Every play, you need to block the defenders downfield, the cornerbacks and safeties. That's why they call them safeties. They're the guys who make the tackle if the runner gets past the linebackers. You don't know which play will be the one where Cooper breaks through. If he does, and you make your blocks downfield, a ten-yard run turns into a touchdown. Understand?"
