The Recruiter

by Dan Ames

  The thrill of it.

  Samuel’s eyes drill into the back of Wilkins’ brown skull. It seems to be suspended in midair, like a perfectly set volleyball just waiting to be spiked. Samuel steps forward smoothly, confidently, and raises the wrench over his head.

  But his tennis shoe makes the slightest squeak.

  And Wilkins turns. He raises his hand, but Samuel twists his body, his legs push, his shoulders torque. All the weightlifting, all the working out, he puts it all into that one big swing.

  The wrench whistles through the air. It drives through Wilkins’ arm, knocking it down and then sinks into Wilkins’ head. He drops to his knees and his arms go around Samuel’s waist. Samuel drops the wrench and drags Wilkins quickly, before the blood pouring down Wilkins’ face can get on the floor. Samuel places him beneath the big bomb hanging from the chain.

  It’s a big one, called a Fatboy.

  Samuel goes to where the chain is pegged to the wall. He disengages the pulley and throws the latch wide open. The bomb drops to the floor, squashing Wilkins’ head like an overripe melon. Samuel puts the wrench on the table and takes a quick look at Wilkins.

  Perfect.

  Samuel is pumping iron. Hefting fifty-five-pound dumbbells with ease. The adrenaline is pouring through his body. The weights feel like feathers. He is watching the exercise bikes.

  He’s waiting for the perfect opportunity.

  At last, the woman he’d seen when he first came in climbs off her bike. As soon as she steps off and is a few steps away, Samuel drops the dumbbells and climbs on the bike. Samuel knows that the exercise bikes have a five-second pause—if you stop pedaling, it will keep your clock running, unless you cancel the program. He’s depending on this handy feature.

  This program is still running.

  Samuel hops on and starts pumping. The clock continues from where the girl who just finished riding. Samuel pushes himself hard, gets the sweat pouring from his face, and he’s riding like he’s never going to stop. He looks at the digital readout: it shows he’s been on the bike for fifty-four minutes.

  Perfect.

  Samuel pushes harder, his legs flying. He works the controls, puts the resistance as high as it goes, and pushes, his legs never slowing down. Sweat cascades from his forehead, drenches his T-shirt.

  Finally, the stern-faced girl with the black hair walks toward the TV and changes the channel.

  Samuel forces a big grin on his face and waves her over.

  She approaches.

  Samuel points at the readout.

  “My PR.”

  She looks at him, a blank expression.

  “Personal Record.” It isn’t. It isn’t even close. Pretty pathetic, in fact, if you look at the distance and calories burned. But she won’t notice.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. Uncertainty in her voice.

  “I’ve gone twenty-five miles in less than an hour. See?” He points to the readout but she’s already moving away. Not good enough. She has to see, and later if necessary, she must swear that she saw the clock read forty-five minutes.

  “Look.” His voice is more cutting than he intended. But she stops. He waves her back and she comes. Leans over him and looks closely at the clock.

  “That’s…great,” she says. “Really great.”

  “It’s an important accomplishment for me,” he says. He hops off the bike and follows her to the desk.

  A siren sounds not too far away.

  She takes her seat behind the desk, and Samuel finds his name on the exercise bike sheet. He fills in the time.

  Clearly. And legibly.

  He sticks his hand out.

  “What a great workout. My name’s Samuel, by the way.”

  She shakes hands. “That’s why we’re here,” she says. “Great workouts.”

  Samuel wipes his face with the towel.

  “I feel great.”

  Chapter 26

  With the aid of crutches and her latest installment of painkillers, Beth makes her way from the driveway to the house. It’s a cold, gray day with heavy mist in the air.

  Beth looks at the house, a squat brick structure devoid of any charm. No flowers. No tidy shrubbery. Just brown grass and a cement porch with a black wrought iron gate.

  Anna drove the rusted-out Pontiac Sunbird home from the hospital. The trip was nerve-wracking for Beth, not only because her mother is a terrible driver, but she is also drunk. Normally, she will do anything to avoid riding in a car with her mother, but her only hope, Peter, was nowhere to be found.

  Her mother fumbles with the keys, and Beth takes them gently from her hand, unlocks the door, and steps inside. It’s a small house. Just an eat-in kitchen, a small living room, and a bedroom downstairs. One small bedroom upstairs.

  The smell of dust combined with old food is nearly overpowering after the sterile atmosphere of the hospital.

  “I’m going to my room,” Beth says.

  “Do you need anything?” her mother asks. The words slurring to sound like: d’ya nee ’sing?

  Beth doesn’t bother answering; instead, she walks up the stairs to her room with difficulty, a few awkward moments that send shafts of pain deep into her knee.

  Beth bangs open the door to her bedroom, makes her way to the bed, and sits down. Her room hasn’t changed from the way she left it Friday night before the game. It’s neat. No clothes on the floor.

  But it seems different.

  A single bed with a white comforter with pink flowers on it, a worn throw rug, a dresser and night table. A small Bluetooth speaker. A reading lamp and a book on the night table. There’s a bookshelf with a few pictures of her teammates. One of her mom and dad. Another of her as a young girl with a ring of flowers around her head.

  On the walls are pictures of basketball players. Nothing like the posters they sell at Nike shoe stores, though. These are action photos from Sports Illustrated. Gritty, real-life stuff.

  She wants to lie down and sleep, but she can’t. She glances down at her cell phone. There are a bunch of text messages but she can’t bring herself to read them.

  Not yet, anyway.

  It’s all gone, she thinks, looking at the athletes in the pictures. Basketball was her way out.

  What was it the doctor had said? They’re performing miracles in rehab now. Miracles. I don’t need miracles, I need money, she thinks.

  Can she conceivably recover, go through rehab, get back into shape, and get a scholarship next year?

  She grabs for her crutches, knocks them to the floor, and struggles to pick them up. Her vision is blurred by the tears, but she gets ahold of them and lurches to her feet.

  She hobbles to the wall of pictures. Slowly at first, then with gathering speed and intensity, she tears the photos from the wall, ripping them in half and into quarters, leaving them to drop on the floor.

  When she’s done, she’s out of breath and the tears have stopped. The anger is gone, replaced by…nothing. She feels empty.

  Empty, like her future.

  She flops back onto her bed, her gaze drawn to the night table, to the small picture of her father. It’s one of him spinning a basketball on his fingertip, a goofy grin on his face. She stares at it for a long time. It’s her favorite picture of him.

  “I really messed this one up, didn’t I, Dad?”

  Beth hears a small gasp from the doorway.

  Her mother is watching.

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” Beth says, “that I might want a drink too?”

  Chapter 27

  Peter sits in his car in the driveway of Beth’s house. He looks up and sees the small window above the entrance.

  “Shit,” he says and pulls the letter from the inner pocket of his jacket. There’s a part of him—no, check that—one hundred percent of him that wants to turn the key over, jam the car in gear, and hightail it out of there. Avoid Beth and those beautiful eyes of hers.

  He knows she’s tough as hell. A person only had to watch her play basketball to know
that.

  But will this crush her?

  He gets out of the car, rings the bell, and waits for Beth’s mom to answer the door. When she does, he says, “How is she?”

  Anna shrugs her shoulders and steps back. She doesn’t need to tell Peter where Beth is.

  Peter climbs the stairs, his stride easy and strong on the steps. He has to duck slightly when he gets to the top of the steps.

  Beth is on the bed, a plastic water glass filled with Coke and ice. Is she drinking booze? he asks himself. Isn’t she on painkillers?

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey back.” He can tell by the lack of focus in her eyes, the smirk on her face, that she’s drunk or high or both.

  “Well, at least you’re not operating heavy machinery,” he says.

  She raises her glass toward him. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Beth,” he says.

  “Aw, come on, I’m just feeling sorry for myself,” she continues. “I’m not getting drunk. Living with the eternal poster child for Teetotalers Anonymous will do that to you, you know.”

  Peter responds by sitting down next to her. He has been in her bedroom many times, feels comfortable there, even though they’ve never slept together.

  “You were great, you know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The way you got your teammates involved, held back, and then let loose in the second half. You played that team, that coach, like a fiddle.”

  Beth blushes at the praise. “Thanks,” she says.

  They sit in silence, neither one of them wanting to say the next sentence, trying to figure out how to do it without starting it with the word “but.”

  “I played them like a fiddle, but that last note was a doozy.”

  “How is it? The knee.”

  “About as strong as a wet pasta noodle.”

  “And just as tasty?” Peter says, bending down to kiss her leg. Beth laughs. Peter straightens up suddenly, remembering why he’s here and what he has to do. He realizes, too late, that it isn’t the right time for a warm, fuzzy kind of moment.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth asks.

  Peter thinks of the time when he was a little boy in swim class and he had to practice a back dive. How he stood on the diving board with the instructor urging him on, but he couldn’t do it. The instructor wouldn’t let him off the board until he did it right. He’d felt like a pirate forced to walk the plank. Finally, he’d gotten so upset that he decided to do it. He’d put his hands over his head, sucked in air, and fallen backward. Now, he remembers how that felt.

  Slowly, he pulls the letter from the inner pocket of his jacket.

  “I’m sorry, Beth,” he says. “I saw her at the hospital; she thought it would be easier coming from me.”

  Beth slowly puts down her drink, reaches for the letter. She rips open the envelope and scans the contents quickly. She sets it back down and reaches for her drink.

  “I’m sorry, Beth.”

  Peter watches Beth try to control her emotions, but he can see them racing across her eyes, trample her control until her face crumples and a tear rolls down her face. Suddenly, she leans back and hurls the glass full of Coke and whiskey against the wall. Peter puts his arms around her as she sobs. “It’s going to be all right,” he says, trying to put comfort into his voice. “It’ll work out. We’ll make it work.”

  From outside the door: “Beth?”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Fisher,” Peter says.

  Hesitation, and then footsteps going back down the stairs.

  Peter can feel the heat from Beth’s face. The moisture from her tears soaking through his shirt against his skin. Slowly, the crying ebbs. Peter stares at the wall. Above Beth’s bed, he sees a small crucifix. Has that always been there? he wonders.

  “It’s not going to be okay,” Beth says, her voice muffled.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Peter says. “But it’ll be okay.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, Beth. I wish I did.”

  She pulls away from him. “I’m going to be stuck in this shithole of a town. That scholarship was my ticket out.”

  “A year’s worth of rehab—”

  “I can’t take another year.”

  “And maybe you’ll get another scholarship.”

  “Big maybe. And another year of my life wasted.”

  “Beth—”

  “And you.” She looks close at his face. “You might get a ticket out of here.” Peter does his best to keep his face clear, but she knows him too well.

  “You…already did?”

  He knows that lying would be the worst thing to do, but he’s still tempted.

  “Where?”

  Peter sees the sadness, the self-pity leave Beth’s face. It’s replaced by something else. Something far more dangerous and potentially damaging.

  Fear.

  He takes a deep breath. “Marquette.”

  “Milwaukee,” Beth says. Her voice sounds lost, like a little girl talking to herself. She snaps out of it and hugs him. “Congratulations. Full scholarship?”

  He nods. Despite the situation, he can feel the pride in his belly. He made it out of Silver Lake. He worked hard, but he was given the height along with the speed. As hard as he tries to quench it, he feels proud of the fact that he made the most out of what he was given. Beth had worked hard too. Poor Beth, he thinks.

  “Do you think we can…?” she falters, blushing.

  He takes her hands in his. “I think we can make it work,” he says. “If that was what you were going to ask.”

  She presses him to her.

  The worst thing to do is lie, he thinks. But sometimes, it’s necessary.

  He puts his arms around Beth and hugs her back.

  Chapter 28

  Deerfield High gymnasium. Pep band. Cheerleaders. The smell of popcorn and teen spirit.

  Beth sits two rows behind her team, her left leg stuck out straight in front of her on the bleacher. When she first came to the gym, the crowd surrounded her, clapped her on the back, offered her encouragement. Her response was to tell them to encourage her teammates.

  They had a game to win.

  Now, Beth watches her team. She thinks they look strong and confident; at least they did during the pre-game warm-up drills.

  The other team looks awfully strong. They look big too. Their purple and yellow colors remind Beth of the Los Angeles Lakers. Two girls, sisters, both of them listed at six-four, and they move okay too. Beth scopes out the opponent’s point guard. Small and thin, but lightning quick with a sweet stroke.

  I would’ve eaten her alive, Beth thinks. She flushes at the bravado. She never bragged, never boasted. But suddenly, it’s killing her she can’t be out there.

  Beth is brought out of her contemplation by the buzzer. It’s tipoff, and the game starts quickly, or at least the other team does. Their passes are sharp and crisp. Their footwork is quick and precise. They take good shots and they make them.

  Silver Lake crumbles before Beth’s eyes.

  Before Beth’s coach can call a timeout, the score is 10-0.

  Beth has never seen her team in such a daze. They’re out of sync. Their passes are tentative and they’re playing without an ounce of confidence.

  In the huddle, Beth hears her coach lay into her teammates. Trying to fire them up. But Beth knows it’s not going to help.

  By the end of the first half, the score is 38-18.

  Deerfield North heads into the locker room with their heads high, smiles on their faces. Silver Lake walks slowly from the court, heads hanging. Silent.

  In the locker room, Beth speaks to several of the players, offers advice, encouragement. She tries to help the coach rally the troops, but Beth has little hope for a turnaround in the second half. She seeks out her replacement, who is struggling with seven turnovers in the first half, although not all of them her fault.

  Silver Lake takes the court and finds out that the worst is yet to come. Deerfield
turns it up a notch and by the end of the third quarter, Silver Lake is down 55 to 27. By the fourth, it’s a foregone conclusion. With five minutes left, Deerfield puts in the second string. Silver Lake does the same thing, and by the end, everyone but the Deerfield players are merely looking for the slaughter to end.

  When the final buzzer sounds, the numbers on the scoreboard are pure humiliation for Silver Lake.

  Beth shakes hands with the other team. They are happy, confident, and moving on to the next round of the tournament. She stands on her crutches and with her giant knee brace accepts well-wishes from them.

  When the last of Deerfield’s players shakes her hand, Beth turns and looks at the crowd. Her last game in a sense. The faces look familiar to her. Parents of fellow teammates, a few teachers, a bunch of students.

  She’s just about ready to head for the locker room when her eye is drawn to one face in particular. A face she hadn’t noticed.

  The coach from Northern Illinois.

  And the girl she’s with.

  The one who crashed into her and blew her knee out. The one called the Tank.

  Her scholarship.

  At least now Beth knows where it’s gone.

  She turns toward the locker room, her leg feeling heavy and cumbersome. Slowing her down. And suddenly, she knows exactly what it feels like.

  A ball and chain.

  Chapter 29

  Samuel doesn’t flinch under the gaze of the man from the Navy’s Internal Affairs Office, a man named Purgitt. He has a round face and an underbite. Samuel isn’t intimidated.

  “Just following procedure here,” Purgitt says as he consults a list. “Ackerman?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it says here that you were working out at the time of Wilkins’ death?”

  Samuel can barely contain his glee. He feels good. Confident. “Yes, I did a good sixty minutes on the bike. I do it every day that I can. Gotta keep in shape, know what I mean?”