Home of the Braves

by David Klass

  “Right,” I repeated. I took a deep breath. “Okay, everybody. We’re going for a run, for fun. If you get tired, take a break. Slow down to a jog, or even walk if you need to. Don’t worry if you lose, there’s always another race tomorrow. Let’s go.”

  A few guys laughed. Then, as we started running, guys began having a little fun at my expense. I had always tried to run a tight ship as captain, and push the team to their limits, and now the guys were testing me. “Hey, I’m feeling winded,” Maniac Murray said. “I might need to walk. That okay, Brickman?”

  “Do what you have to do,” I told him.

  He didn’t walk, but he did slow down noticeably. A couple of the guys slowed down with him.

  “Three miles seems a little long,” Zigler pointed out. “What about two miles? Two miles feels like enough today.”

  “Run as far as you want,” I said. “I’m going three.”

  Most of them turned back long before the road. I ran the full three miles, sprinting the final hundred yards as my lungs burned. But even though no one passed me, I wasn’t the first one back. The guys who had run two miles had already finished up, and were kicking balls around as I sprinted up, gasping for breath.

  Practice was miserable for me that day. I kept getting distracted by the cameraman, who roamed up and down the sideline following the Phenom. Antonio seemed to be making a personal highlight film as he shredded our defense time and again. When he sank a ball on a beautiful bicycle kick, all four girls on the high bleacher clapped.

  Coach Collins finally blew his whistle three times, signaling that we were done for the day. “Great practice,” he said. “Antonio, you were super. Monday we play Emerson. We have to beat them to make the play-offs. Well, we have to beat just about everybody to make the play-offs. The way you guys looked today, I think we’re gonna give them a run for their money.”

  He had to be kidding. Emerson was one of the best teams in the county, and they had always beaten us by three or four goals. We weren’t in their class—we weren’t anywhere close. I figured Coach’s new sweatsuit must be too tight and had cut off circulation to his brain or something. “Joe,” he said, “hang out for a minute. We should talk.”

  My teammates headed back toward school to shower up. Coach Collins exchanged a few last words with the Phenom’s dad and the TV cameraman, and then he walked over to me. “Listen,” he said, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you out there. I know you didn’t mean anything bad during warm-ups. I myself think some of these new rules are a little … excessive …”

  “I would never insult or punish or haze anybody on this team,” I told him. “You know that.”

  “Sure I do. That’s why you’re the captain,” he said. “Everybody respects you.”

  “Then why do I have to change the way I’ve always run practice? How can we have a team race without winners and losers?”

  “Maybe we can’t have any more team races,” he said. “At least, not with penalties.”

  “Races make people run faster,” I argued. “If they run faster in practice, they’ll run faster in the game. Taking down the nets never hurt anybody. It’s good for discipline … it makes everyone try harder.”

  “People are trying hard,” Coach Collins said. Then he smiled, an unexpected, big, gaping, hopeful smile, like a man lost in the desert who sees rain clouds gathering. “Joe, great things are going to happen to this team. This could be the beginning of a success story for soccer at Lawndale. You should be proud—no one’s worked harder for this team than you. I want you to think about something—an idea I had.”

  “What idea?” I didn’t like the sound of this already.

  “Antonio—he’s really special,” Coach Collins said. “I’d like to make him feel welcome here. And acknowledge that he’s a unique talent. I want to give him a role on this team that befits his soccer experience and abilities. He has a lot to teach me as a soccer coach. And obviously he has a lot to teach you guys. So … what would you think about making him co-captain?”

  “He’s only come to a couple of practices,” I pointed out in a low voice. “I’ve busted my butt for four years.”

  “Just think about it,” Coach Collins said. “You guys would be great together. Lots of teams have two captains.”

  I squared my shoulders and looked Coach Collins right in the eye. “Not this one,” I told him. “This team will only have one captain. The day he puts on a captain’s armband is the day I take mine off.” I turned and started away.

  “It was just an idea, Joe,” he called. “You should at least consider it. Where are you going?”

  “To take down the nets,” I shouted back at him. “Because no one else is gonna do it. Nobody lost the race, nobody stuck around after practice, and the nets have to come down. So let me do what I need to do, as long as I’m still the captain of this team.”

  I took down the nets myself, and rolled them up, and stuffed them into their sacks. Each net weighed forty pounds. I slung the two heavy sacks over my back and started toward the school, and I was so angry at Coach Collins for what he had just suggested that I barely even felt the weight.

  Then I saw Kris. She was saying goodbye to her new girlfriends, and as they headed off in one direction, she walked across the field to intercept me. “Hey, J,” she said, “you look like Santa Claus after his reindeer deserted him.”

  “I don’t feel very merry,” I muttered. “What’s up?”

  “I have to practice a piece in the band room, so I’ll be there after you shower,” she said. “Maybe we can hang out, and have a talk, and walk home together.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Wouldn’t you rather drive home in a sports car?”

  Kris looked back at me for a few seconds. “No,” she finally said. “Today I feel like walking.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more fun to hang out with your new friends?” I glanced at Jewel, Laura, and Jennifer as they gingerly picked their way across the grass in their expensive shoes, as if trying to avoid patches of quicksand.

  “I kind of want to hang out with an old friend,” Kris told me. “Even if he’s in a lousy mood. That is, if he still wants to hang out with me.”

  17

  As I showered and started dressing, I found myself moving more and more slowly. It’s a strange thing—I hadn’t been scared to meet Slade in the subbasement bathroom and risk getting beaten up, but I was afraid of this talk I was about to have with Kris. I must’ve spent ten minutes combing my hair and thinking of things I should and shouldn’t say to her. Finally I couldn’t delay any longer, so I walked out and headed for the band room.

  The conductor’s platform was pushed off to one side and the wooden band shell was empty, but the lights were on, and I could hear flute music coming from one of the practice rooms. I followed the music to the closed door, and knocked twice. Kris let me in, and the door swung shut behind her. We were alone in the small practice room. “I’m almost done,” Kris said. “That must have been the longest shower in history.”

  “I was dirty,” I told her, which sounded so stupid when I heard myself say it that I grinned, and followed it up quickly with the equally goofy “But now, as you can see, I’m clean.”

  “Yes, you do look cleaner,” she said with a nod and a smile. “Do you mind waiting?”

  “Go ahead and finish. I’ve got nothing to do.”

  The practice room held only one chair and one music stand, so I sat on the floor, with my back against a wall, and watched as Kris glanced from me to her sheet music, and slowly raised her flute to her lips.

  I can’t tell you how pretty she looked as she started to play. I sat there and watched her, and remembered why I had liked her so much for so long. And I could feel that as she played, Kris was aware of how close I was sitting to her in the tiny room, and of the intensity of my gaze. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with it. In fact, I sensed that she was kind of enjoying it. A strange, charged energy bounced around the room. Her fingers moved expertly across th
e keys, her lips kissed the silver mouthpiece and let it go, only to kiss it again, and her hazel eyes flicked over the bars of music as if she was looking for hidden secrets.

  As I watched her, and listened to the beautiful music she was making, I kept asking myself variations of the same question, over and over. How could I have let months and years slip by without telling her how I felt about her? We had had many good times as friends, but we should have been girlfriend and boyfriend long ago. How could something that was so clearly meant to be not happen?

  Kris played a last few dazzling, silvery notes and was done. She lowered the flute and looked at me. “So, was that awful or what?”

  “I’ve listened to more painful things,” I told her. “Kris, I thought it sounded great.”

  “That shows what you know about music.”

  “I know what I like.”

  She began putting her flute in its case. I continued to sit there and watch her. The room was totally silent. She felt my gaze and glanced down at me. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just … you look really beautiful when you play,” I said in a low voice.

  I had never paid Kris a compliment like that before. Our relationship had always been based on mutual teasing. She looked like she didn’t know how to respond. “Thank you,” she finally said, and blushed, which made her look even more beautiful.

  “I’m sorry for what I said last time we talked,” I told her. “It was rude of me, and none of my business, and I deserved the slap.”

  “It’s okay, Joe,” she said. “What you said hurt me, but I got over it.”

  “I would never hurt you, Kris. I felt so bad afterward. Truly.”

  She snapped the top of the flute case closed, but neither of us made a move to leave the little practice room. I guess we both realized we had found a good private spot, and that there were things we needed to hash out. “I know I hurt you, too, Joe,” Kris said. “This is a really awkward situation. We should talk about it, and we need to be honest no matter how painful it is. You wanna go first?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  She grinned. “Me neither,” she said. “Maybe we need some small talk.”

  A few seconds of awkward silence ticked by. “What do you think of all the cops and metal detectors and cameras?” I asked her.

  “It’s spooky,” she answered. “I don’t think it’s necessary. Our school’s not so dangerous.”

  “That town meeting on Friday’s gonna be a real zinger,” I said. “I read in the paper that they’re expecting a few hundred people. Are you gonna go?”

  She hesitated, and then shook her head. “My parents are going. They’ll fill me in.”

  Then I remembered. “Oh, yeah. You already have plans for Friday night.”

  “So much for small talk,” Kris said. “Yes, I do have plans on Friday.”

  “Where is he taking you?”

  “This famous Spanish guitarist is playing a concert in Manhattan,” she said. “He rarely performs. I’ve wanted to hear him play for so long.”

  “So, going to hear him was your idea?”

  “No,” she said. “It was Antonio’s idea. He’s very into the music scene. Joe, do we have to talk about this?”

  “See, that’s what’s wrong with me,” I muttered. “I would never think about asking you to a concert by a Spanish guitarist in a million years. I guess I don’t have that much culture. I just wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Joe, don’t do this to yourself …”

  “And I know I’m not that good-looking, or even a soccer star …”

  “Please, please, don’t do this.”

  I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to go on if I hadn’t just had the clash with Coach Collins. But I was still furious about what he had suggested, and somehow my anger at him made me brave enough to speak the truth to her: “But I have feelings for you, Kris, that have been growing for fifteen years.”

  “Stop,” she said loudly, and tears brimmed in her eyes. But those tears made her eyes look even more tender than usual, and she was looking right back at me. She didn’t pull away when I moved toward her. I reached up very gently to touch her hair. It sifted out of my fingers—as if too delicate to be held in a hand that had washed ten thousand cars. My fingers moved up farther, and I grazed her cheek. She trembled when I touched her, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she raised her own hand and put it over mine. Her touch was warm and soft, and suddenly we were looking deep into each other’s eyes. I don’t know whether she drew me to her, or whether it was my idea, but a second later we were kissing.

  I can’t be sure how long it lasted, but I do know it went on for a few seconds, and it wasn’t just me doing the kissing. And I know that that long kiss with Kris was the best and most honest thing I’d ever felt in my entire life.

  Then she pushed me away. “No,” she whispered.

  Our faces were inches apart. “Why not?” I asked her. We were both breathing hard.

  “Because …”

  “That’s not a very good reason.”

  “Because I have a boyfriend,” she said.

  “Who you’ve known for two weeks, and gone out with once or twice. Big deal.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said. She was retreating. I could feel her pulling back, drawing away from me, as she said, “Friday night, I’m going out with him again, and …”

  “Yeah, fine,” I said. “So Saturday night you can go out with me. And Sunday and Monday and Tuesday.”

  “No,” she said more firmly. “No, Joe.”

  There were tears brimming in my own eyes now, and I don’t cry very often. “K,” I whispered, “we were meant to be a couple. You can’t just erase all the time we’ve spent together. Tell me why not? You’re gonna have to tell me—”

  “Damn you.” Kris didn’t slap me with her hand again, but her voice was a slap, her words were a slap. “You can’t do this to me now. That’s not what you wanted, Joe.”

  “You’re wrong. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “No you didn’t. I waited and waited and there were a million chances, and if you had wanted it, it would have happened.” She wiped tears away. “But you didn’t. Not when we were freshmen. Not when we were sophomores. Not even for our junior prom.”

  “You always said dances were silly.”

  “They are silly. So what? Didn’t you think I wanted to go to my own junior prom? I dropped hints and waited for weeks for you to ask me. I even had a dress picked out. But you never asked me …”

  “We went to a restaurant that night, with Anne and Ed and Rory, and we had a good time …”

  “And I came home and cried. I wanted to go to the dance, Joe. I wanted so much to go with you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I did,” Kris said. “Maybe not directly, but a hundred times, in a hundred ways. I waited and waited. And you never asked … because you didn’t want it.”

  I looked back at those hazel eyes and I said, softly, “I want it now, Kris.”

  “Now it’s too late,” she answered. “I still have feelings for you but it’s like … I crossed a bridge. And I’m not gonna cross back.”

  I saw that she meant it, and I put my fist through the wall of the tiny practice room. I didn’t even realize I was throwing the punch, and then WHAM, my knuckles exploded through plasterboard and foam core. The shock of the punch broke the tension between us.

  “Joe, you just put your hand through the wall,” Kris said.

  “Yeah.” I took a couple of breaths. “Sorry.”

  “You okay?”

  I gingerly pulled my fist back through the hole it had made. There were three or four cuts, and a little blood on my knuckles. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for whatever it costs to fix it.”

  “It’s not a really big hole,” Kris pointed out. “Maybe no one will even notice. And if they ask me, I’ll say it was here when I started practicing. This might not be such a good time for you to admit to pu
nching walls and destroying school property, Joe.”

  I saw what she meant. “Okay.” I shrugged. “But if you get in any trouble, put the blame on me. I’ll just tell them I heard something in the band room I didn’t like much.”

  Kris stood up, and I stood up, too, clenching and unclenching my hand. “So, are we still walking home together?” she asked.

  “Up to you,” I said.

  “Go wash the blood off,” she suggested. “I’ll meet you at the side entrance in five minutes.”

  I went to the bathroom and ran icy-cold water over my hand. It throbbed, but the pain was kind of welcome. I splashed cold water on my face and tried to calm down.

  Kris was waiting for me by the side entrance. We started home, walking in complete silence, but we didn’t get very far. There was a bench beneath a willow tree that overlooked Overpeck Creek. When we passed it, Kris veered over to it and sat down, and I sat down next to her.

  The sun was sinking behind the cattails of the marshes on the far side of the creek, and a breeze rippled the smooth surface of the water. “So,” I said, “what do we do, Kris? Where do we go from here?”

  “Friends,” she said hopefully.

  “We can never be just friends.”

  “Of course we can,” she said. “We’ve been friends for years.”

  “We can’t go back. Not after today.”

  “That would be a shame,” Kris said. “Old friends are the best friends.”

  “You’re the one who’s giving up your old friends,” I told her.

  She didn’t like that. “What do you mean?”

  “Anne. And Rory.”

  “They’re still my friends.”

  “Ed says you never sit with them at lunch anymore. You always sit at the popular table.”

  Kris tried to control her anger. “Well, things change.”

  “Yeah, but you’re changing awfully fast. Ed says you don’t even wave hello to him anymore.”

  And then she stopped trying to control her anger. “Joe, Ed is a social zero.”

  I was shocked. “Nobody’s a zero,” I told her. “And he’s been my best friend since third grade.”