Angus said it wasn’t too disgusting now for friends to come hang out, so we both did that, different friends. Hers being all guys, mine girls. Angus said just keep the drama out of her sight. She and Sax and them stayed upstairs gaming or watching old movies that Sax was into. He memorized entire scenes and had contests with Angus of trying to say all the words right. Crazy to watch. They were in the same classes, and he kind of egged her on into contests of everything, including best grade on every test. Meaning he ended up pissed at Angus basically at all times.
Downstairs meanwhile, the so-called homework club girls sat around our king table trying to fit variable expressions into the tiny mail slot of the Demon skullbox. They’d crack their gum and be amazed how hard it was for me to get higher math. If I flirted with any one of them on accident, the others would go brutal on her. They couldn’t just relax and be regular human. Angus had a point, and I was seeing it. Then May Ann Larkins’s older sister Linda came with them, being an alleged math whiz. Holy Moses. Long hair, long legs, long sideways looks out of those blue eyes like, dude, I’m in high school. I know shit. This is not algebra we’re discussing. Try doing equations some time while trying not to get an under-table woodie.
Who these girls really loved though was Mr. Dick. If he was there, they made such a fuss I got jealous. Me with my excellent arms and legs, feeling sorry for myself because these girls are crowding Mattie Kate out of the kitchen, taking over the blender to make strawberry milk shakes for Mr. Dick. Or pushing his wheelchair outside, breaking branches off the crab apple tree for him to smell the first flowers of spring. Not that I wanted to be their little dolly. It’s how sweet they were, in a way that didn’t happen with regular guys. Not trying so hard. And not scared.
Coach saw my future, and it was tight end. Every kid of course dreams of being quarterback, and I did too, since my altar call in the church of Fast Forward. But I never forgot what Coach said: a team is made of followers. Your coach or QB calls the play, but it’s not worth pissing on unless there is execution. That’s what a tight end is about. He’s fast, he’s alert, good at catching a pass and holding the ball and putting it down. Big enough to be a force, to get around the end and open a gap for a running play. If he has what it takes to play both ways, D-line also, and if he says his prayers, then he might get to be one of God’s diamonds. A General.
Football camp ran through a good chunk of summer, both JV and varsity. Coach had put in the word with Mr. Briggs, the JV coach. He agreed about me being tight end, and that’s where he put me, as alternate to Collins that was in eighth grade, my height, thirty pounds heavier, headed up to Generals the next year. To be the next Collins, I would need to bulk up. Bring it on.
Mr. Briggs also ran defense drills for the high school team, and sometimes called me over to go in on the hamburger drill, which is man-on-man. If he needed to match somebody for size. U-Haul always noticed, trying to take me down with the Hellboy eyes. But too bad for U-Haul because I just kind of oozed my way into the kingdom, as young as I was. No more errand boy. Coach gave me full privileges in the weight room, and at camp we all used the field apparatus together. The chutes, which are a metal pipe contraption like cattle chutes but with a low ceiling, three feet high. You have to get your body down low and charge through there, duck-walk running without banging your helmet on the top. Four guys would run it side by side, trying to be first to get to the end and hit the blocking guard and push him up the hill.
The chutes were my superpower. On other drills I held my own, but on the chutes I amazed. Tall as I was, I could still make myself small. And then at the end, throw all my might against whatever stood in my way. Everybody saying, Jesus look at him go, turbo-Demon. To me it felt normal. Keep your head down, don’t get seen, assail. My life was one long chute leading me there. By fall I was dressing out, wearing my jersey to school on Fridays, getting the full quotient of pep rally love. A damn seventh grader. In another year, I’d be playing for Coach.
34
A lot of firsts that school year. First scrimmage, first JV game, first tackle, first passing yards made. First school dance, with an eighth-grader girl that was dead serious about it so, my first real date evidently. Angus and Sax went together dressed as Planet of the Apes, loser of their grade contest （Sax） being the human on a leash. This is Homecoming mind you, not Halloween, so. Not a date. But Angus took mine over, ordered the corsage from Walmart, took me to Goodwill where we found this dope white suit from the sixties. In my size, unbelievable. I’ve grown into my hands and feet by this point and am pushing six feet, thank you Mattie Kate.