“I don’t care how much talent a kid has, if he’s too proud to do as he’s told, he’s a waste of my time. Proud, stubborn, you tell me. They come in here wanting to be stars, wanting their glory. And think they’ll get it by acting like the biggest thugs on the hill.”
I looked at his freckled hands on the desk. His Generals hat. I looked at the big black hairs of his eyebrows that sprang out in all directions, some of them way too long. Terrible, wrongful eyebrows. I wasn’t meeting his eyes, man to man, but it was my best effort.
He leaned forward on his hands. “I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to hear it. A successful team is not made of leaders. It is made of followers.”
“Yes sir.”
“I don’t care if it’s picking up the damn garbage,” he said. “If that’s the job I give a member of my squad, I want to see it done.”
He had no idea. As regards me and garbage. But he’d seen enough. My ears were ringing, but I got the gist. He said I would go on living there, and we’d see how it went. He would talk to Coach Briggs about putting me in JV practices next fall. Seventh graders could go up for practice, if they had the size. Football camp ran most of the summer. Technically they shouldn’t play me before eighth, but that rule was not hard and fast.
The blood thrashing on my eardrums drowned out everything else. Summer and fall were forever away. Months. I would be here, for all of them. In this house. Going out for football.
33
What I said before about having some golden time of life where it’s all good, your people have got your back, and you don’t notice? That’s how the cruel world bites you. I have bad days galore to look back on, the shamings and hard fists, and I’ll tell you what. It’s the golden times that kill me. I had two. And like a son of a bitch, I missed them both.
The first, childhood in general. Running wild on my bare feet, tramping the mud of the creek into Mrs. Peggot’s kitchen, those places being two versions of boy heaven. A kid couldn’t ask for better. Too bad though, because the kid was full-time fixated on asking for better, mostly in the way of unaffordable shoes and Game Boy.
The second time was seventh and eighth. Regardless Jonesville Middle being baby-town, it grew on me. Not a soul there knew that one mere grade previous, I’d been a worthless piece of shit. Born again. Now I could speak to anybody and had friends in all the kinds: laid-back ones you score weed from, brainy ones to drag you from the death swamp of pre-algebra. Full friend gamut. Teammates you could grab in the locker room and lift off the ground in a reverse chinlock, all slippery with sweat, laughing your naked asses off. Girls ditto, minus the chinlock.
These kids did seem young. Outside of the dummy classes, you’d be hard pressed to find a kid in Jonesville Middle that had even held down a job. Being friends with such people entailed listening to made-up problems to some degree. I could tolerate that, much more so than Angus. Girls can surprise you by knowing more than they’re letting on. Also for a guy it’s different. If you sit still and let your ears take all that girl business, other body parts may get their turn.
So the impossible happened. In due time, a school would be owned by Demon Copperhead in his Members Only jacket. He should have been the happiest damn fool ever. But no, he’s waiting for the shit to hit the fan, looking behind whoever is being nice to him that day to see what’s coming. Still your jack-shit homeless orphan, just faking it in nice clothes. I’d done nothing to deserve good luck, and I knew what people are made of. Sooner or later they will turn on you. Or die.
Also, there was this thing that happened with U-Haul. This was in late January. Awkward as fuck. After Coach went to bed U-Haul would spend hours in his office. Putting receipts into the books, jerking off, who knew what he did. And he scooted around the house in his white socks, for reasons of stealth. U-Haul never came into a room, he materialized. In the doorway of our beanbag TV lounge that night. There he was, crooking a skeleton finger at me.
“Hey! What’s up?” I said. Playing dumb as to the meaning of the “come here” finger.
“The playbook is messed up. Coach must have dropped it. The binder is busted.” He rolled his head to the side, heaving stringy hair out of his eyes. “I thought you’d help me put it back in order. You and him are so tight, I’d say you’ve got it memorized.”
I looked at Angus but she was like, Your funeral, pal. On the football front she’d made herself clear from day one. Not interested. I followed him downstairs wondering how a human could look that much like a reptile while walking down stairs. He slithered.