Sidelined

by Kara Bietz

  “My dad and I had just gotten the pen closed when we realized that someone had left the opposite gate wide open. That ‘someone’ was probably me, but let’s just not talk about that little piece of the story. Do you know how hard it is to wrangle three dozen little baby squealers when your boots are covered in pig shit and it just rained a couple days ago? Good gravy.” He shakes his head and yawns loudly. “Then their mama is madder than a wet hen while we’re chasing the piglets through the yard, thinking we’re trying to make bacon out of ’em.”

  The whole table is in tears while Bucky talks about the piglets, and even I let a laugh or two escape. He talks through almost the entire lunch period, which means I never have to turn my head to look at Julian.

  It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about him, though.

  My strategy for history class is more of the same. Keep my earbuds in, keep my head down, get my work done. Luckily, Mrs. Nguyen only assigns silent reading and some study questions for the class period. I sit in the back corner of the room and completely ignore Julian’s attempts to get my attention.

  I can’t run away in the locker room, though, and Julian corners me while I’m tightening my pads for practice.

  “Why are you so pissed at me?” he asks, out of breath and sounding exasperated.

  I look up at him.

  “If anyone should be pissed, it’s me!” he says when I don’t respond. “Everything I ever thought I knew about my own father is basically a lie.” He considers that statement and then shakes his head a little bit. “Okay, maybe not everything, but some of the most important stuff.”

  “Yeah? And how’s that feel?”

  Julian just blinks.

  “And how do you think it would feel to be told that, just kidding, it wasn’t your father’s fault the football team fell from grace twenty years ago! Whoopsie! The whole town hates you because of it, but nope—it actually wasn’t his fault! As a matter of fact, things could have turned out very differently if his best friend hadn’t been a big liar. Do you know how much shit Frankie and I have had to go through just because we’re Eric Vance’s kids? Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out any different. Maybe my dad would’ve still made the same choices and screwed up anyway. But what if he hadn’t? What if that football game was the tipping point?”

  Julian’s shoulders fall and his eyes search my face. He reaches his hand out and touches my elbow. “The whole town doesn’t hate you—”

  I yank my arm back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Elijah.” His voice is soft. “Nobody hates you. And nobody judges you because they think your dad got in a fight—”

  “I gotta go,” I say to him, strapping my helmet under my chin and running toward the field. I can’t handle looking at him anymore or talking to anyone. I just have to put my head down and make it through this practice.

  I stand in back of the pack for warm-ups and don’t meet Julian’s eyes at all. I’m here to play football and go to school. Sure, I’m sleeping one room away from Julian, but that’s not forever. Eventually, Ma and Frankie and Coley will be here, and I will be able to move out of that house and I’ll only have to see Julian at practice. I can do anything for a couple of weeks.

  · twenty-seven ·

  JULIAN

  I wait until Birdie goes to bed before I knock on Elijah’s door. Honestly, I don’t expect him to answer, but I feel like I need to try.

  The door opens slowly, and Elijah stands there in pajama pants, his hair still wet from a shower and dripping on his bare shoulders. “What?” he says, sounding tired.

  “Can I come in and sit down?”

  He doesn’t answer. Only rolls his eyes and sits back down on the bed in the dark room.

  I take that as a reluctant yes and follow him in, closing the door before I sit down with my feet folded underneath me at the foot of the bed.

  “I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry,” I tell him, a sliver of light pouring in from the backyard floodlights, illuminating his profile.

  “Do you even get why I’m so angry?” he asks, turning his head to face me.

  “Look, Elijah. I don’t know that I’ll ever understand exactly what it’s like to be you. Or what it was like to grow up as a Vance in Meridien, but I do know what it’s like for everyone to judge you based on the ideas they have about your family,” I tell him. I don’t feel like I’m explaining myself really well, but it’s the best I can do right now.

  “It’s different when they expect you to be amazing,” he says quietly.

  “Maybe, yeah. But do you know how much pressure that is?” I ask. “I feel like everyone’s eyes are on me all the time, and if I don’t do something amazing, I won’t be living up to my dad’s legacy or some bullshit. It’s exhausting,” I tell him. My voice gets quieter. “It also feels like the entire town knows my father better than I do. I hardly remember anything about him anymore. Not memories that are just mine, anyway. It feels like everything I know about him has been told to me by someone else.”

  “I guess we’re the same in that,” Elijah says quietly.

  We don’t talk for the next few minutes, and I get lost in my own thoughts while I listen to the rhythmic pattern of Elijah’s breathing and the out-of-balance ceiling fan above the bed.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry,” I say again.

  Elijah stays quiet for so long I worry that he’s fallen asleep.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Just processing,” he says.

  “Can I… give you a hug or something?” I move forward on the bed, and I can see his face more clearly in the muted light flooding in from the window.

  “I don’t think I want that right now,” he says, the light touching his bare shoulders. His back hunches, and a hint of sadness touches his eyes.

  “Oh.” My stomach sinks.

  “I’m sorry, too, though,” he says. “I guess I never considered what it would feel like to grow up as a Jackson. Night, Julian.”

  He lies down with his back to me.

  “Night,” I say, leaving his room.

  I lie awake, blinking in the dark for hours. Things will get better, I tell myself. You apologized. He apologized. His feelings are hurt just like yours are, but it’s going to be okay. Give him time. That was a big blow you hit him with. It’s going to be okay.

  Now if I can only get myself to actually believe that.

  I must have eventually drifted off to sleep because my alarm jolts me awake just as the sun is coming up. I smell breakfast cooking in the kitchen, and I wander out of my room to see Elijah and Birdie having cups of coffee while just-baked muffins cool on the counter.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Birdie says when she sees me.

  Even Elijah turns and offers me a real smile. “Morning,” he says.

  The knots in my gut ease, and I smile back. “Hey. I thought I smelled something delicious,” I say, helping myself to a corn muffin and sitting down next to Elijah.

  The three of us sit and have breakfast together, Birdie sharing some of Pastor Ernie’s plans for the Main Street Community Center with us. “There will be a childcare center with a huge playground in the empty lot next to the building,” she says. “That’s the eventual plan, anyway. It might take Pastor a little while to raise enough funds for that. Oh, it’s just going to be the jewel of the town when it’s done,” she says.

  “I’m so happy for you, Birdie. I’m glad you still get to be a part of it all,” I tell her before going to get ready for school. And I almost mean it.

  “Your father would have loved this,” she whispers when she hugs me.

  Elijah and I walk to school alone this morning. The Guardettes have started their early morning practices today in preparation for the big homecoming halftime show in three weeks. He still doesn’t talk much, but I don’t feel the same anger radiating off him that I did yesterday.

  “Were you listening yesterday when Bucky was telling that story about his pigs?” I laugh, remembering it as Crenshaw comes into view
in the morning sun.

  “Yeah,” he says with a soft laugh. “The guys were cracking up. I thought Nate was going to wet his pants.”

  I laugh with him. “I can’t believe he—” And then I stop.

  You know how sometimes brilliant ideas take months of planning and thinking over, and other times a brilliant idea hits you out of nowhere, like a lightning bolt?

  “Oh my god,” I say, stopping at the bottom of the Crenshaw driveway. “I just had the most amazing idea for the prank.”

  “What? Tell me,” Elijah says, finally sounding more like himself.

  “I can’t. I have to talk to Bucky first,” I say, jogging up the driveway toward the gym doors. “I’ll see you later!”

  “Bucky?” Elijah sputters. “But—”

  “Tell all the guys to meet me at the lunch table today!” I yell back at him, laughing all the way to the front doors.

  After I share my brilliant plan with Bucky and he assures me that both he and his dad will be on board, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut until lunchtime. The plan is just too good to keep quiet for long, and I’m finally starting to understand why this prank is so important to everyone.

  I draw out the suspense until the whole team is gathered around our lunch table.

  “What’s happening with the prank, Cap?” Nate asks. “We’ve been waiting all day to hear this.”

  I glance around to make sure Coach Marcus or Coach Andrews isn’t nosily poking around the cafeteria. “I had this idea this morning,” I say, and a murmur runs through the team. “Greased. Pigs.”

  “Wait, what the hell are you talking about?” Darien asks, and everyone laughs.

  Bucky breaks into loud laughter, and the soccer team, at the next table, glances over at us.

  “Hey, shh,” I warn him. “We’ve got to keep this quiet. Piglets. Bucky’s family has got a ton of them, right? I got the idea after Bucky told us that story about the piglets getting loose yesterday. We’re going to grease up some of those piglets and let them loose on the Taylor field on Thursday morning. Early… like predawn early. They’re impossible to catch when they’re covered in Crisco. They’ll spend their entire morning practice chasing pigs instead of getting ready for their Friday night game,” I say.

  “Oh my god.” Someone laughs. “They’ll be slipping in pig shit through their entire morning practice.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  The team chatters and the laughter gets louder. Loud enough for some of the cafeteria monitors to start wandering our way.

  “Hush, now,” I tell them. “I have one condition! This year, we’re starting a new tradition.” I look at Elijah, and he nods his head once and offers a small smile. “For every prank we pull, we’re also doing some community service.”

  The team groans.

  “Now, hear me out,” I say. “Once we finish the pigs, we’re going to help Pastor Ernie with a new project he’s got going. We’re clearing that vacant lot next to Ron Redd’s because he and Figg are going to be building a playground there soon. I expect us to help out when it comes time for that, too.”

  The guys all nod and agree with me. “I think we can handle that. Good call, Cap,” Nate says, patting me on the back.

  It’s Thursday morning, and about half the team is gathered at Bucky’s farm, helping to load squealy pink piglets into a cage in the back of Bucky’s truck.

  Bucky’s dad is there, too, helping corral the little animals while we load them.

  “Yes, sir, this is going to be a good one,” Mr. Redd says, laughing while we bring pig after pig to the truck.

  “And there’s no chance these guys are going to tear up the field, right?” I ask Mr. Redd. “We just want to inconvenience them, not ruin them.”

  “Aw, no. These little porkers aren’t going to do anything to that big old field,” he says. “Not unless someone throws some feed down and they start digging for it. You’re going to be just fine. It’s prank season.… Taylor’s expecting you!” He laughs out loud.

  Elijah has been quiet and a little withdrawn this week. He’s still speaking to me, but he won’t let me hold his hand or touch him. It’s almost like he’s lost in thought a lot. I’m giving him as much space as he wants, but I miss him so much.

  “I’m glad you’re doing this with me,” I told him on our way out of the house this morning.

  “I’m doing it for the team.” He smiled, climbing into Bucky’s truck for the ride back out to the Redd barn.

  We decided earlier that after the team helped load the animals at Bucky’s farm, Bucky, Nate, Darien, Elijah, and I would be the ones to deliver the piglets. A mess of pickups driving onto the Taylor field before the sun comes up might cause a bit of a ruckus, and that was the last thing we wanted. We didn’t need to give Taylor a warning about what we were trying to do.

  The drive out to Taylor takes about thirty minutes. “Did you remember the Crisco, Darien?” I ask, my leg shaking from nerves.

  “Got it right here, Cap.” He points to a few grocery bags at his feet. “Quit worrying. This is going to go off without a hitch.”

  For some reason, that fails to make me less nervous about all of this. It was a fantastic idea when it first hit me, and it’s still a great idea, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m about to get in trouble for something. Or get the rest of the guys in trouble.

  I guess it’s harder to quiet that old worried Julian than I thought it was going to be. As we get closer to the school, my stomach just keeps flipping and flipping. I hold my head in my hands to keep the dizzy feeling at bay.

  “Hey,” Elijah says next to me. “It’s going to be fine.” He smiles, then reaches across my lap and links his pinkie through mine.

  The darkened football field is covered in dew when Bucky pulls the truck right up to the chain link fence. Elijah and Darien hop the fence with Crisco and settle down to wait for the rest of us to lower piglets from the bed of the truck.

  Bucky sticks a yard sign right by the gate that reads PIGLETS COURTESY OF CRENSHAW COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL AND REDD FAMILY FARM at the insistence of his father. “I want my piglets back,” his father told us this morning, laughing. “At least this way I know someone will return ’em to me.”

  I hand the first one over.

  “Slippery little sucker.” Darien laughs as he holds the squirming piglet while Elijah slathers it in Crisco. The two of them are laughing like hyenas while the rest of us watch from the bed of the truck.

  “Let him go, let him go!” Elijah exclaims after he’s sufficiently covered it in grease.

  None of us can breathe because we’re laughing so hard at the first little pig loose on the big field. The little guy takes off like he’s been held hostage for months instead of just for a few minutes in the back of a pickup truck.

  We continue our piglet bucket brigade until the field is hopping with tiny pink porkers. I’m lowering the last one into Elijah’s waiting arms while Darien jumps back over to wipe the Crisco from his arms when we hear someone yell from the Taylor field house.

  “Hey! What are you doing out there! Hey, you!” the voice calls, and we see a man running from the equipment shed toward the field.

  Elijah quickly drops the last pig and hops over the fence and into the back of the pickup just as we see a camera flash go off. Bucky throws the truck into drive and takes off through the grass toward the road, Elijah holding on for dear life in the open bed of the truck.

  Bucky finally pulls over about a half mile from the highway, and we let Elijah get into the back seat.

  “Holy shit, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” he says, out of breath. His long hair is a mess from the white-knuckle ride in the bed of the truck. “I think that maintenance guy got my picture, though,” he says.

  “No way,” Nate says, turning around from the front seat. “It was too dark, and you were already over the fence when he snapped the picture, anyway.”

  The truck is quiet for about two seconds before we all bust out laughin
g, relieved that it’s over and beside ourselves that we actually pulled it off without getting caught.

  “Man, I wish we could have hidden out under the bleachers and watched those Taylor twits run around trying to catch a herd of greased piglets,” Darien says, and that starts a fresh round of raucous laughter.

  Bucky brings us back to his house to get cleaned up before we head to school. His dad is waiting for us in the driveway, a big smile on his face.

  “You got ’em good?” he asks as soon as we pull up.

  “We got ’em,” Bucky tells him.

  Mr. Redd raises his fists in the air. “Yes! Man, I love prank season.” He laughs. “Wait until I tell your grandpa and the word gets back to all the alumni. They’re going to love this one.”

  We’re all still in high spirits as we drive toward Crenshaw, the last of the Crisco and pig smell hopefully washed off of us.

  I’m daydreaming in Figg’s class when the pink slip comes.

  “You’re needed in the principal’s office, Julian,” Figg says, handing me the slip.

  “Oooooh,” erupts the chorus of calculus students behind me as I throw my backpack over my shoulder.

  When I get there, Bucky and Elijah are already sitting in the upholstered chairs in front of Mr. Campbell’s desk. Coach Marcus comes into the office behind me.

  Oh, shit.

  “Thanks for coming, boys,” Mr. Campbell says to all of us as Coach Marcus leans against a bookcase next to the desk.

  “I got an interesting video from Ms. Eccles over at Taylor High School this morning,” he says, clicking something on his keyboard and spinning his monitor toward us.

  On the screen, the entire Taylor football team is chasing tiny piglets around their field in full pads. The squealing doesn’t drown out the laughter or the cursing as the team fumbles around with the slippery little things, trying to get them into a makeshift pen on the other side of their fence. The moment one is caught, it wiggles out of the player’s arms and flops right back down onto the field and runs away, determined not to be scooped up again.