Stand-Off

by Andrew Smith

  I thought about things. I decided that my eyebrows and the inner arch of my right foot were the only parts of my body that were not sending pain signals to my brain.

  Which was just about when Coach M blasted the whistle to end practice.

  I was in no mood to get up. I lay on my side, tasting the little bits of grass and dirt that had somehow crossed the border and migrated into my mouth, thinking how if there ever were a flavor of ice cream called Oregon or Failure-Pain Swirl, it would pretty much taste exactly like dirt and grass.

  Coach M stood above me as the rest of the guys filed off the pitch.

  “Are you all right, Ryan Dean?”

  “I just don’t feel like getting up yet, Coach.”

  “All right, then,” Coach M said. “You know, he who hesitates . . .”

  “Gets rucked,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I WAS PRETTY SURE JP TUREAU had cracked a rib, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it, especially with only one week to go until our first preseason friendly.

  A friendly is a rugby match that doesn’t count for anything. And, like most rugby matches that actually do count, they’re usually friendly affairs, because rugby tends to be like that.

  “It seems like we hardly see each other lately,” Annie said.

  She sat beside me in the dining hall as we ate dinner that night. And let me tell you, those preformed fiberglass benches we sat on seemed to shoot spikes of pain upward through my rib cage. It hurt so bad, I could hardly take a breath.

  “We saw each . . . other in Culinary Arts,” I said, stuttering and gasping through the pain. “Remember? You and the Abernathy . . . won the . . . Coquilles St.-Jacques com—competition. Mine looked . . . like giant scabs.”

  “You sound strange. Is something wrong, Ryan Dean?”

  “I kind of have . . . the hiccups,” I lied.

  JP leered at me from across the table, no doubt trying to gauge whether or not his tackle had had any lingering effect on me. But I was a rock. Well, a stuttering rock. But there was no way I’d ever admit to being hurt in front of JP Tureau, or anyone for that matter. I turned my face at just the perfect angle so nobody could see the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

  “You should scare him,” Isabel suggested. “That always works when I have the hiccups.”

  I still hadn’t found out if Isabel had lost her virginity over the summer. It was killing me almost as much as my ribs. Actually, more.

  And then JP said, “Hey, Ryan Dean, a few of us guys are planning on sneaking over to the old O-Hall at midnight tomorrow and busting in to the place. You game?”

  I dropped my fork. It was plastic, so it wasn’t very dramatic at all.

  “Fun—Funny, JP.”

  “Nobody told me about that,” Seanie said.

  To be honest, nobody ever told Seanie anything, unless they wanted the entire planet chatting about it.

  “Oh. I guess that didn’t work on the hiccups, huh, Ryan Dean?” JP said. “Well, can’t blame a guy for trying, right Snack-Pack Senior? How about if I said we all found out you broke Penis Commandment Nine?”

  Two things: First, JP and some of the forwards were effectively getting the rugby team to adopt Snack-Pack Senior as my new nickname, since I couldn’t properly be called Winger anymore. I did not like the name Snack-Pack Senior. It was really creepy, because it almost gave the impression that the Abernathy was my spawn. Besides, the Bagnuolo brothers who played the wings both already had nicknames, so some of the guys on the team couldn’t break themselves from still calling me Winger, which I definitely preferred to Snack-Pack Senior. Second, four of my rugby teammates, including JP Tureau and Seanie Flaherty, were in the same all-boys twelfth-grade Health class with Mrs. Blyleven, so we all had to write down and sign and memorize our own copies of the Pine Mountain Academy Ten Commandments to My Penis.

  To be honest, the first few penis edicts made sense and were reasonable—kind of—but, by the end of the list, whoever had come up with those decrees (and I am absolutely confident the responsible person was not God) had to have been pulling stuff out of his (or her, because I think Mrs. Blyleven was the original author) ass to stretch the list out to Number Ten. Number Nine, undeniably terrifying, involved motorized household appliances.

  But I didn’t have hiccups, much less a motorized household appliance, so that didn’t work either.

  Then Seanie, all deadpan creepiness, said, “Dude. Ryan Dean, did you bring a vacuum cleaner with you to PM?”

  And Isabel asked, “You guys have penis rules on the rugby team?”

  “Grr—Great conversation,” I said, and then winced.

  “It’s a list of rules the boys in Senior Health had to sign,” Annie explained. “I’ll tell you about them later.”

  And then she giggled and looked at me, which was simultaneously embarrassing and totally hot, because I would have done anything in the world to be there when Annie told Isabel about our Penis Commandments.

  But, unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.

  • • •

  I told Annie about meeting Nico Cosentino in Headmaster Whatever-you-want-to-call-him’s office that day when I wasn’t having lunch with her. I didn’t tell her why I’d gone to the office in the first place. Annie still foolishly held out this expectation that I would forge a deep and meaningful friendship with Snack-Pack Abernathy.

  But, like eavesdropping on Annie Altman’s recounting of the Ten Commandments to My Penis to her roommate, Isabel Reyes, that was another something that was too far-fetched to ever consider happening.

  We stole a good-night hug behind the screen of shrubbery at the De-Genderized Zone after dinner. I’ll admit it hurt enough to make me gasp, and Annie grabbed me by my shoulders and asked, “Ryan Dean, are you crying?”

  My eyes were watering because of the pain in my ribs, but I still took the opportunity to score major emotional points with Annie Altman.

  “No,” I said, and wiped my eyes.

  But everyone knows No is going to be the answer a boy gives to that question, no matter what the truth is, so Annie just stood there, staring at me. Then she put her hand on my cheek.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with Joey’s brother,” she said. “But he isn’t Joey, you know. He has to deal with things in his own way. You get that, right?”

  “Oh. I know, Annie. Still, it would have been cool if we could have just talked a bit, you know?”

  Annie nodded. “I love you, Ryan Dean.”

  “I love you, Annie.”

  Then our perfect and quiet moment was ruined by Mr. Bream’s punch-in-the-ribs baritone: “Ryan Dean! Are you managing to sleep better these days?”

  In the same way I neglected to tell Annie about my torn-up kneecap and JP cracking my ribs, I also failed to mention to her that I’d been having near-nightly episodes where I’d been terrified of everything. And nothing was getting better.

  “Oh. Huh? Uh . . . yes, Mr. Bream,” I said. “Much better.”

  But I could see the pain and concern on Annie’s face.

  She said good night, and added, “The weekend before your regular season starts, you’re coming home with me to Bainbridge Island, okay?”

  “You still have that dog?” I asked.

  Annie had a pug named Pedro who liked to hump my legs whenever he saw me.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “we had his balls cut off.”

  Suddenly, everything in my body, my soul included, was wracked with pain.

  Poor, poor Pedro.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I DRAGGED MYSELF THROUGH UNIT 113’s doorway, wondering if it would even be possible to lie in my bed and not feel pain.

  The Abernathy, all soccer-jammied-up, was already there watching television, wrapped in his blankets next to the open fucking window. And what a surprise—it was the Cooking Channel.

  Mrs. O’Hare would probably dock me points for not calling it the Culinary Arts Channel.

  “
Hi, Ryan Dean. Want some popcorn?”

  “No.”

  Watch. Watch. Watch.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and snaked off my belt, acutely aware that I was unable to bend forward enough to untie my shoes. I kicked them off and stiffly unbuttoned my shirt.

  The Abernathy was still watching me, as opposed to paying attention to the riveting feature about marmalade preservation.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Duh. My ribs hurt so bad, I couldn’t even take my pants off. I was not about to ask Sam Abernathy to lend a hand. I lay down on my bed, a mess of unbuttoned, unfastened school clothes.

  “No.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  Why, I wondered, was it the case that every syllable from the Abernathy’s lips was like a little rusty knife stabbing into my side?

  “Stop . . . talk—talking to me.”

  “Is that why you’re sleeping in your clothes? Because you’re drunk? I heard some of the forwards talking about getting drunk and smoking marijuana with Spotted John. So if you did, you can trust me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  What kid says “marijuana”? And anyway, Spotted John was from Denmark. That explained everything, right?

  Still, I refused to engage. Also, my pain receptors, like the larva in soccer pajamas, refused to quiet down.

  “How’s your knee?”

  NO.

  Look, I knew it was going to be a long season and a rough year. The Abernathy wasn’t making things any easier for me either. The simple truth is that number ten—the stand-off—gets hit more often than any player on a rugby team, so I couldn’t reasonably count on being out of pain until May or June. I was also well aware that there was nothing that could be done for injured ribs besides taking painkillers of some kind. I was desperate, too—desperate enough to actually say something to Sam Abernathy.

  Painkillers.

  That was it. Legendary rule breaker and future Prince of Denmark Spotted John Nygaard could hook me up. I should have thought of it before getting halfway out of my clothes and lying down. I rolled over and slid my knees down to the floor. I thought about slipping my shoes back onto my feet, but the thought was enough to sway me over to the hell-no camp.

  “Ryan Dean! You are drunk, aren’t you?”

  “No. Shut—shut up.”

  I heard the soft little sound of Abernathy feet hitting the floor behind me.

  “Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you going to make vomit?”

  Who says “make vomit”?

  “No. I . . . my ribs . . . I think I crack—cracked them.”

  I groaned and stood up. Sam Abernathy’s baby cow eyes were as big as billiard balls.

  “Oh my gosh, Ryan Dean! Oh my gosh!”

  Holding up my pants, I slid my socked feet toward the door.

  “If . . . If you say . . . anything to Coach . . . about this, our claus—claustrophobia truce ends. Got it?”

  And the Abernathy repeated, “Oh my gosh, Ryan Dean!”

  “Let me back in . . . when I . . . knock.”

  “Where are you going, Ryan Dean? Do you need help? Can I come with you?”

  “No.”

  I didn’t even have the strength to grab my room key from my little desk.

  I left.

  Spotted John Nygaard’s room was on the sixth floor, a level in the caste of Pine Mountain that I was destined only to look up to from my untouchable earthbound banishment in the wasteland called Abernathy.

  Some random kid with a ketchup stain on his shirt was waiting for the elevator. He looked me up and down and said, “You missing a few articles of clothing, dude?”

  Funny.

  And I said, “Did you miss your fucking mouth with that french fry, asshole?”

  Well, to be honest, I thought about saying that, but I didn’t.

  I buttoned my beltless pants, which wouldn’t stay up because I’d dropped a few pounds, and then I did that elevator thing where you just stare directly ahead at the crack in the door and wonder when the fuck the random ketchup-stain kid is going to get the hell out of my elevator. And when the random kid got out at floor three, I flipped him off. After the doors were closed, though.

  That’s how I roll when I have busted ribs, an open (but unstained) shirt, and only one sock on.

  Daring.

  And my greatest fear was that Seanie Flaherty would be standing in the hallway when I got out of the elevator. He and JP Tureau also lived on the celestial floor six, which I had been to a couple of times but always imagined as some kind of endless pleasure dome of fun, which was a stupid thing to fantasize about, being that there were only boys on the sixth floor and this was Pine Mountain, where pleasure domes—like campfires, kissing, and cell phones—were against the rules.

  Luckily for me, the hallway was empty except for the potted palms on either side of the elevator. And then I found myself momentarily seething with jealousy over the sixth floor’s foliage, when all floor one had was a claustrophobic, insane twelve-year-old who wore soccer pajamas and knew how to make hollandaise sauce from scratch. Unfortunately for me, there was a sock slung over Spotted John’s doorknob, which I understood to be the internationally accepted boys’ dorm symbol for “keep out.”

  Keep out, unless it’s an emergency, right?

  And as I stood there, debating whether or not to actually ignore The Sock, I thought, Hey . . . convenient. I could use an extra sock right about now.

  And then I wondered if it was clean and if I could actually stand the pain of putting it on.

  Gross.

  I decided to bury Spotted John’s sock in a shallow, unmarked grave in one of the potted palms.

  And again, as luck—or the absolute absence of luck—would have it, just as I was finishing up my sock funeral, the elevator doors slid open and out walked Seanie Flaherty and JP Tureau.

  “Ryan Dean! Why are you digging in our palm tree? And why are you practically naked?” Seanie Flaherty said.

  “And are you even allowed up here?” JP added.

  I had to think on my feet, one of which was bare.

  “I . . . uh . . . need some palm . . . root . . . for Cu—Culinary Arts class.”

  Brilliant.

  JP stared at me. He could tell he hurt me at practice; I knew it. Then he leaned over the potted palm’s pot and looked at me, then at my bare foot, then at me again.

  “And why are you burying your sock in our palm tree?” he asked.

  Seanie saw it too. He shook his head. “Dude. That’s so fucking gross. Why don’t you just throw your special sock in the trash, like a normal guy would do?”

  Seanie made air quotes with his fingers when he said “special sock.”

  “It’s not . . . my . . . sock.”

  Which was probably the worst thing I could say.

  “Dang,” Seanie said. “Snack-Pack’s got some big feet.”

  “I hate . . . hate you . . . Seanie.”

  Then Seanie Flaherty gave me his creepier-than-usual creepy Seanie Flaherty expression and backed toward his doorway.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you, and, uh, your sock, Ryan Dean. Or Snack-Pack’s sock. Whatever. It’s all okay with me.”

  Seanie made air quotes when he said “okay.”

  And he continued, “I’d invite you in to kick it with some TV or shit, but you probably need to finish doing what you were doing with your sock. Or whoever’s sock. Or getting dressed. Or whatever. Dude.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I WAS ALONE IN THE hallway again.

  I knocked on Spotted John’s door.

  “Fuck off,” came a voice from the other side. “Can’t you fucking see the sock?”

  “There is no sock, Spotted John,” said the guy who murdered and buried Spotted John’s sock. “It’s me, Ryan Dean.”

  I heard some movement inside the dorm room, and the door creaked open. I looked up, expecting to see the towering monster of our Danish eight-man, but there was only open airspace where Spotted John’s h
ead should have been. Spotted John’s roommate, our hooker, Cotton Balls, who stood roughly even with my collarbones, peered out at me.

  “Hey, Cotton,” I said, “I need to ask Spotted John a favor.”

  Jeff Cotton—Cotton Balls—looked down at the doorknob, then he looked at my one-sock-on-and-one-sock-off feet.

  “Is that our door sock?”

  “No. It’s mine. My foot sock.”

  “Why do you only have one sock, Ryan Dean?”

  “Long story. Is Spotted John awake?”

  “Why is your shirt unbuttoned?”

  Hookers get hit in the head an awful lot. To be honest, hookers’ heads are the battering ram of a rugby team.

  Cotton turned away from his door crack. “Hey, Spotted John, Snack-Pack Senior’s here. Should I let him in?”

  Oh yeah, hookerballs. Snack-Pack Senior. Great.

  From behind the cracked door, Spotted John asked, “Is he alone?”

  Cotton stuck his head out the door and looked behind me, trying to see if maybe I was smuggling an Abernathy upstairs to spy on our forwards for Coach M. Then he yawned and let me inside.

  I don’t know what was more irritating to me at the time: the pain in my rib cage or the intense feeling of outrageous indignation at seeing the interior of Spotted John’s and Cotton Balls’s apartment—because that’s what it was, an apartment. They had a living room that was bigger than the entire hellhole I shared with the Abernathy, and each of them had his own separate, doored-off bedroom, both of which were clearly bigger than good old Unit 113. And Spotted John’s apartment was like a shrine, a museum for all things prohibited at Pine Mountain Academy. He had two cell phones sitting next to a six-pack of beer on a coffee table, which was in front of the plaid sleeper sofa where Spotted John Nygaard sat in his boxers and a T-shirt that said I WOULD PREFER NOT TO, doing something on a prohibited iPad that was obviously connected to the Internet. It was like standing inside a massive glass-fronted diorama display of “Everything Good Boys Are Not Allowed to Do at Pine Mountain.” Also, the place smelled a little like pot, and I noticed that a plastic bag had been duct-taped over the unit’s smoke detector. They also had one of those inflatable life-size girl dolls standing in the corner beside one of their desks, and that really made me feel gross and creepy, because the vinyl girl was naked except for a scrum cap, which is one of those douche-looking foam pads that forwards wear on their heads.