by Hiatt, Bill
“If you weren’t the team captain…”
“What, Shar? You wouldn’t do it? Fine, don’t. You’re not the only guy on the team I could have fight Tal.” Shar stared at Dan, clearly angry, and then stalked away. He did, however, climb into the makeshift ring. He might not like the whole idea, but he would fight. Good. So far, everything was going according to plan.
“Don’t hold back, Shar, or this won’t count!” Dan yelled after him. Shar started to turn toward Dan, then thought better of it and turned toward me.
As I climbed into the ring, I was still listening to the general area in which Dan was sitting, and I got another earful right before the match started, this time from Gordy Hayes, one of the football players Stan tutored.
“Dan, you’re a good student. You don’t know what it’s like for me. I have a shot at college, but only through football—and I won’t even have that unless I can pass classes like chemistry. And Dan, I can’t do it, not without Stan. He’s the only reason I’m passing chem now.”
Dan looked at him casually and replied, “There’s no I in team.” I thought for a second that Gordy was going to smash him in the face. But no, he walked away without a word…until he got out of earshot of Dan, at which point he was muttering vehemently, “I hope Stan does Eva…and your mom…three times a day for the next three years!” In fact, as I swept different parts of the audience, I picked up a fair amount of muttering from football players, though none was quite as colorful as Gordy’s.
Dan, who had been practically worshiped by the other players, especially this year, clearly was putting a strain on their loyalty with this vendetta against Stan. I felt good that the other players really did care about him—and me, for that matter—but I got a sick feeling contemplating what would happen to Dan if his attitude tore his connection with the rest of the team. I needed to do my best to end this today—and in a way that worked for both Stan and Dan.
I turned my attention to Shar. Eva had not been entirely accurate with her Hercules comparison. Shar was Persian, not Greek. Aside from that, though, the comparison worked. I thought I had definition, but Shar, who—big surprise—had decided not to wear a jersey and was thus bare-chested, like a professional boxer, looked as if he had been chiseled by Michelangelo. Was that a six-pack, or an eight-pack? Either way, he was perfect for what I had in mind, except that Michelangelo had sculpted David, and in this little drama Shar was going to be more like Goliath, except that this time Goliath was going to win.
Coach Miller, who wasn’t looking a whole lot happier than Gordy at this point, explained the rules, and one of his assistants rang the bell for the first round. Shar was far stronger than I was, and fast—but I was faster. I ran out the clock on the first round mostly by dodging. It wasn’t the most crowd pleasing strategy, but everyone knew what a powerful boxer Shar was, so on one level I was winning in a sense just by evading those Golden Gloves-worthy fists. Shar had clearly not expected me to have such defensive skill.
“Nicely played,” he whispered to me as round one ended. In amateur boxing there were only three three-minute rounds, and the friends I had in the audience visibly relaxed, evidently expecting that the rest of the match would proceed in the same way.
No one, least of all Shar, realized that I was carefully choreographing this action. I wanted Shar to think I could defend so well I wouldn’t get hit. That would encourage him to hit his hardest, despite his initial reluctance to fight me.
In the second round, only about five seconds in, I pretended to almost trip, and Shar smashed me right in the head, hard enough for me to hear ringing in my ears even with the head guard. Shar was clearly unsettled by that, but he was too well-trained to let his feelings show very much. After another few seconds I slowed down, and he landed a powerful gut punch, sending me staggering backward. He looked puzzled, but followed up with a blow to the face that would have had me swallowing teeth, if not for the mouth guard. I started throwing deliberately inept punches at Shar, leaving myself wide open. He delivered what he intended as a light blow, but I twisted so it landed on the wound on my left arm, which started bleeding as if on cue. My split lip was bleeding a little too.
In the background I could hear Nurse Florence, who must have just come in, arguing with Coach Miller, who told her to stop distracting him, probably not something she heard very often from men. The bell rang, signaling the end of the second round, and Nurse Florence continued to push on the coach. I caught snatches of conversation that suggested her outlook was pretty much the same as that of Principal Simmons. While they argued, I glanced over at Dan, and realized I had made a horrible mistake.
You may recall that magic can force people to act against their will, but using magic that way can take a heavy toll on those on whom it is used. Dan’s bond with me, entered into willingly, did not at first cause such a problem. But now his feelings were much different, conflicted at the very least, but more likely mostly negative. The blows I took during the second round must have triggered Dan’s need to defend me, only he didn’t want to and was fighting it. His face had gone an ashy gray, and his tremors shook him as if were on the verge of having a seizure. I yelled to him in Welsh not to come to my aid, but apparently the magic was set up in a way that did not allow me to waive the obligation.
The bell rang starting round three. Again in Welsh, making it sound like a war cry, I bellowed to Nurse Florence, “Release Dan. The compulsion is hurting him.” Then Shar smashed me in the face again, and I went down.
“Stay down!” yelled Nurse Florence, but in English. I started to get up, just enough to see that Dan had slumped into his seat, though whether as a result of Nurse Florence adjusting the tynged or because I was no longer in as much danger I couldn’t tell. I used my extra stamina to jump back up, hoping to do what I needed to do without triggering another problem for Dan.
Again I dropped my guard, and this time Shar pummeled me, deliberately pulling his punches but putting just enough force behind them to knock me down again.
“Stay down!” he mumbled through his mouth guard. I staggered back to my feet, but my defensive work was sloppy. However, instead of taking the shot this time, Shar just stared at me. I jabbed at him, but he dodged back, not trying to land the blow he clearly could have. Abruptly, he tore off his gloves and threw them on the ground.
“To hell with this!” he yelled, jumping out of the ring and heading toward Dan. I followed, unsteadily. I wasn’t faking. Oh, I had manipulated the way Shar hit me, but the pain was real enough, the blood (admittedly from last night’s wounds) was real enough. Somehow it would have seemed underhanded to fake pain in this kind of situation.
“He’s a good boxer, good enough to avoid getting hurt,” said Shar to Dan, loud enough for much of the stilled audience to hear. “But after round one, he kept letting me hit him, over and over. Hell, he practically threw himself on my fists. End this. Whatever he had to prove, he’s surely proved it.”
“We haven’t finished the third round…”
“End this!” shouted Shar. Others echoed the sentiment. It might quickly have become a shouted chorus, but Dan responded with a curt nod. Stan was officially off the hook. The only problem was that now Dan looked like a total scumbag in the eyes of most of the school. The next few seconds would decide whether that idea stuck or not.
“Thank you, Dan,” I said, as loudly as I could. “Thank you for giving us this chance. I don’t think Stan could have stood it if you had not honored our request, even though I know you didn’t want to do it. You have given him the chance to be free of his guilt.” At best, I was playing fast and loose with the truth, but there was magic behind those words, healing magic, all I could manage at the moment, and I sent it out into the crowd with every ounce of strength left to me, willing them to believe, willing them to see Dan in a different light. Then I hugged him, partly to cap the scene with the appropriate visual, partly because I was feeling dizzy. So people really did see stars in this kind of situation.
&nb
sp; “You, you asked for this? I thought Dan made you do it,” said Shar.
“No,” I replied quietly. “Stan and I had to beg. Dan thought the whole idea was barbaric, but I knew it was the only way for Stan to get closure, so I pushed until Dan agreed. He just pretended to have forced us into it so if the idea caused any trouble, he’d take the heat for it, not us.” Such a blatant lie, but Principal Simmons was right about one thing—for better or worse, I was getting good at lying. I could feel Dan tense in my arms, but he said nothing. Then I felt the faintest shudder, almost like a sob, but I couldn’t be sure.
“As I let go of him, being careful to rest my hands on the bleacher railings, Nurse Florence appeared behind me.
“My, you do find ways to get yourself injured. Let’s go to my office and get you checked out.”
“I’m a little wobbly,” I said. “Perhaps Dan could help me get there?” Yes, I wanted another shameless visual manipulation, but I also wanted to be alone with Dan and Nurse Florence. Dan got up and let me lean on him. The audience was treated to the image of the two friends exiting the gym, one supporting the other—or at least, that was how I hoped it would spin in the campus gossip mills.
As I was leaving, I got “high fived” or slapped on the back by a lot of people, and even Coach Miller gave me a thumbs up.
“After the events in school yesterday, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see that again,” I whispered to Nurse Florence, who was on the other side of me from Dan.
“He has every reason to be happy with you,” muttered Nurse Florence. “You just upgraded his star player from a complete ass to only…”
“A half ass,” I suggested with a snicker.
“Well, anyway, keep it up. Carl knows you will redeem Dan yet.”
“Let’s hope,” I replied. At that point, we moved outside the noisy gym, and it seemed prudent to end our conversation, now that Dan could hear every word.
We walked (or hobbled, in my case) to Nurse Florence’s office. Nurse Florence verified Dan was in defender mode, which meant he wouldn’t remember anything later, so it would be safe to talk in front of him.
“I have a good mind to spank you,” said Nurse Florence irritably as she re-bandaged my arm.
“Well, if that’s what you’re into,” I replied, though whether I was punch-drunk or just generally cocky from the afternoon’s events, I wasn’t sure.
“Taliesin Weaver! If you hadn’t already had your quota of blows to the head for the day, I would slap you.”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I think someone with thousands of years of experience should be above that kind of sexual innuendo, but what you are trying to do is distract me from my point. Were you a cowboy in one of your previous lives? I ask because you keep pulling these cowboy moves!”
“I think things worked out pretty well.”
“A bad strategy that succeeds through dumb luck does not suddenly become a good strategy.”
“Dumb luck?”
“You heard me. You didn’t bother to tell me what was going on, so you didn’t know I was going to be there to heal you if need be. You could have been injured far worse than you were, and then what would have happened? I gather you also didn’t know Shar’s conscience was going to get in the way of crushing you like an insect. Face it, there were a lot of variables you didn’t control for. And at least one of them will come back to bite you eventually.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your story about you and Stan asking Dan to set up this match. If Stan wanted closure so bad, why wasn’t he the one in the ring? When the initial magic you spewed on people wears away, they will either question that statement, or assume that Stan is a big wimp who lets you fight his battles.”
And I thought I had done so well!
“I guess I need to adjust the spin on that a little. I’ll take care of it.”
“Ooh, spin doctoring. Did you learn that in your internship with Carrie Winn?”
“Funny. But there is another important matter I need to discuss: Dan.”
Dan, who had been pretty zoned out, looked up at that.
“What about me?”
“I think you need to release him from his bargain, lift the tynged, and let him go back to living his life.”
“Why?” asked Nurse Florence and Dan, almost at the same time, and quite eerily.
“You saw what almost happened at the match.”
“Oh, yes, something else you didn’t plan well for.”
“There’s more than that,” I said, somewhat exasperated. “Something is wrong with Dan. He overreacted to the whole situation with Stan and Eva…”
“I thought Stan was going to sleep with my girlfriend!” protested Dan. “A lot of guys would have acted the same way.”
“You’re not a lot of guys. You’re you, and you would never have hit someone like Stan.”
“Except for the last few weeks, we haven’t even spoken in years,” argued Dan. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“Maybe not, but then there’s today. Dan, I wasn’t the one you thought was after Eva, but you have been giving me crap ever since this whole thing started. Even most of the other players couldn’t understand what today was really about. I can’t see the sense in it either. I had to cover for you to keep everyone from staying mad with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“That’s not the point. If you were the same person you normally are, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” Dan asked, not in anger, but in something that sounded halfway between resignation and despair.
“Understand what?”
“I thought we were going to be friends again,” said Dan quietly, sounding in that instant almost like the ten-year-old Dan I still dimly remembered. “But when the chips were down, you sided with Stan.”
“I didn’t!”
“You were on his side, making excuses for him in your head, and even when we heard the truth…well, what we thought was the truth at the time, you still defended him. Then you were so eager to come to his rescue that night, you tried to guilt-trip me. You used Jimmie, Tal, Jimmie.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Saying it isn’t enough. You’re good with words, Tal, very good, but actions speak louder than words—and every time you act, you trample me to save Stan.” So Nurse Florence’s earlier feeling was correct.
“Dan, why do you think Stan ran away in the first place? He did because he tried to get comfort from me after school, and I couldn’t give it to him. I didn’t know what to do. I was thinking, not just of Stan, but of you. Yes, I wanted Stan rescued, but in part because it was my fault he was in danger in the first place. He’s my friend; you know that. But I rescued him last night because he needed rescuing. You didn’t. If the situations were reversed, I would have tried just as hard to rescue you. And I did what I did today for Stan and you—that can’t have been lost on you.”
“No, I know what you mean. But somehow, all that seems real to me is your friendship with Stan. Are you and I friends? I have no idea.”
“And that’s why you need to free him,” I said to Nurse Florence. “The bargain may have been entered into freely, but now his will is scraping against it. It’s making him sick, and he’ll just keep getting sicker.”
“I did sense someone else’s magic on him yesterday. Perhaps another influence…” began Nurse Florence.
“Whatever,” said Dan dismissively. “Is anyone going to ask me what I think?” Nurse Florence and I both stopped and stared at him.
“Well, of course, Dan. Sorry. I just assumed…” I began.
“Well, you assumed wrong. I don’t want to be let out of the agreement.”
“But…”
“No! And as I understand the rules, Nurse Florence, the bargain binds me, but it binds you as well. We both have to agree for it to be dissolved.”
“Well, yes,” said Nu
rse Florence thoughtfully. “That’s true.”
“Here’s what I think,” said Dan. “I like the football part of the bargain. You’ve really kept up your end. As for Tal, well, maybe we aren’t friends. Maybe we never will be. But if I say I want out of protecting him, and then something happens to him, I, well, I couldn’t take the guilt. I can think he’s a bastard and still defend him to the best of my ability.”
I tried to persuade Dan to change his mind, but after a few more minutes I gave up. I didn’t doubt that Dan would still defend me. He had to, after all, if he wanted to keep being the football wunderkind. But hanging out with him all the time, knowing that his feelings for me oscillated between indifference and hatred, gave me that “alone in a crowded room” feeling.
When Dan went to get my clothes from the gym, Nurse Florence looked at me and shook her head.
“You did manage to get yourself a concussion out of this stunt. I’ll heal it before you go, but in future, you don’t make a move without telling me.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Park the sarcasm somewhere. I’m not done.”
“Okay, sorry. Go ahead.”
“I don’t know if it’s from the alien magic—yes, I can still feel it on him—or from something else, I don’t know, but there is a darkness in him. Maybe the emotional roller coaster we’ve all been on has shaken him up too much. I’d agree with you that he needs to be freed, except that that darkness would be too easy for an enemy to exploit. His tynged prevents him from acting on any impulse that would be to your detriment—a condition he agreed to. Free him, and someone else could possess him by force.”
I nodded. “Then it sounds as if we should leave the situation as it is. Actually, I’m trying to tell myself that he still wants to be friends, and that’s part of why he doesn’t want to end the bargain.”
“I’ll keep a good thought,” replied Nurse Florence, just as Dan returned with my clothes, which he dropped off with deliberate abruptness and then left. I changed quickly, Nurse Florence healed my concussion, and I thought I was ready to leave, but she had one more thing to say.
