by Barry Lyga
"We've got Canterstown," she goes on.
I wince. Even the Canterstown softball team is hard-core. They do something in Canterstown, I think, where they genetically engineer the kids to have superior ball-playing skills. The Sledgehammers and the ironically named Lady Sledgehammers are brutal.
"Good luck," I tell her, and I mean it.
"Wish I could see you play."
I grunt something noncommittal. I've seen Rachel play, and I know she's been in the stands when I've played over the years. It is terrific to watch her, strictly from a logical and platonic point of view, of course.
She's a phenomenal player, and my appreciation for her talents has only gone up in the wake of her striking me out the other day. I wouldn't mind seeing her pitch, but I don't want to have her think there's something more to it.
She leans over toward me. "I don't bite, Josh. You can talk to me. You can even sit a little closer so it's easier to hear."
I turn to answer and realize that she's practically on top of me, her face close to mine. "Jeez, Rache."
From the front seat, Zik sees us in the rearview and kills the moment, unintentionally, I'm sure: "Hey, you two! Get a room!"
Michelle giggles. I sit up straight. Rachel sighs and leans back in her original position.
"Canterstown," I say.
"Lady Sledgehammers," she confirms.
"Good luck," I tell her again.
Chapter 13
Back to School
Monday morning, Roland the Spermling demands an audience. I'm not even in the building five minutes when he spots me in the hallway and calls out, "Joshua! Joshua Mendel!"
In the chaos and tug-of-war that is a high school corridor, everyone manages to find time to turn and look at me. By now, the South Brook verbal Internet will have propagated the story like a virus: Josh Mendel beat up Coach Kaltenbach. No one will have been surprised by it, given that my history of beating the crap out of people, my excellent grades, and my admittedly standoffish behavior have combined to make me an almost-pariah. Almost. The fact that I'm magic with a good piece of lathed ash in my hands makes me tolerable.
That's not ego speaking; it's raw numbers. My batting average this year alone is .526 and over my high school career it's .494. I've got a .600 on-base percentage, a 1.070 slugging average. In the majors, I'd be walking on water. In high school, it just means I'm damn good. School pride—that invisible, amorphous, ultimately useless glue that holds South Brook together—prevents me from being a complete and total reject. I'm seen as contributing something to the school, and for that reason alone, I'm tolerated.
"Roland!" I shout back to him.
"Roland Sperling!"
He flushes redder than usual and gestures impatiently for me to come with him. "I gotta go," I tell a random student nearby. "Roland needs help tying his shoes again."
I push through the crowd, but Roland is already playing his pathetic bullshit passive-aggressive game by walking away before I've caught up to him. Fat-ass needs a hundred students to block for him if he's going to try to move faster than me.
It's no mystery where he's going anyway—his office. I blend in as best I can, slipping by and moving ahead, then run like hell down the hall that passes the cafeteria, turn right, and haul ass up toward the music room. The hallway here is nearly empty, and it's a straight shot to the office.
It's a longer route, but I can run, unlike the Spermling. I weave my way into the office and wave to Miss Channing, the school secretary.
"I'm here to see Roland," I tell her, and then duck into Roland's office and sit down behind his desk. I've got ten seconds before he's here, easy.
A few seconds later, I hear Roland bitching and complaining out in the outer office. "...want her here ASAP, OK, Miss Channing?" And she says, "Yes," and he says, "And page Josh Mendel for me. He was supposed to be right behind me."
I miss the next part, but I hear Roland loud and clear—"What?"—and then the heave and huff of his breath as he tromps down the short hall. His bulk fills the doorway to the office.
"Roland!" I exclaim. "I'm so glad you could make it. Have a seat." I gesture generously to one of the two guest chairs.
His nostrils flare and his face is so red that it's damn near purple, but he's not about to let me get to him. "Good to see you, too, Josh. Take your appropriate seat, please."
"This one's comfortable." I bounce up and down a little bit on the chair that is no doubt reinforced to hold a man of Roland's considerable bulk. "I can see why you like it."
"We've spoken about respect before, Josh."
"Yeah, we have. Like not screaming my name out in a crowd of students. That the sort of thing you mean?"
He bristles at the comment because it's true and I'm right and if there's one thing authority figures can't stand, it's being called on their own bullshit.
"Out of the chair. Now."
I relinquish the seat and sit in one of the guest chairs. Roland closes the door and squeezes around me to take up position on the Throne of Power. He takes a moment to check everything, making sure I haven't messed with his stuff.
"Did you enjoy your time off?"
"Oh, yeah, it was a blast."
"As promised, I've had your teachers hold your work for you. You shouldn't have any problems making up the work. If anyone gives you trouble, just let me know."
I'm dying to say, Why bother suspending me if you're going to make it so easy for me to get caught up again? But I already know the answer—it's all about appearances. About taking a stand and saying that a student can't hit a teacher, but without really hurting me. Stupid.
"I hope you took your time off to think about what you did," he goes on.
I didn't really think about it much at all, and when I did, I thought about how good it felt. But I don't tell Roland that. "I did spend some time wondering why a jerk-off like Coach Kaltenbach is allowed to teach at all, but I guess it has to do with tenure, huh?"
Roland starts drumming his fingers on his desk. "Joshua, I have cut you more slack in your four years here than I've ever cut for anyone in the ten years prior. I wish you would appreciate what I'm trying to do for you."
"What exactly are you trying to do for me, Roland? I haven't figured out what I've done to deserve any favors from you." I drop my voice low and give him a coy look. "Unless you're sweet on me..."
He harrumphs and knocks a pen off his desk. "I know you enjoy getting my goat, Joshua, but the truth is that I simply believe that a young man with your potential should not be held back due to ... issues that may arise from certain ... incidents in your past." He laces his fingers over his considerable gut and leans back in his chair, satisfied.
I force a smile to my face, but what I really want to do is lunge over the desk and force-feed his hands to him. It's such a palpable urge that I can almost feel my body launched over the desk, scattering papers and pens and knickknacks as Roland's face turns into a round badge of terror and then I'm on him, pounding—
Sigh. Not a chance.
I want to say, So, getting fucked on a regular basis when I was twelve buys me a free pass from you? Is that it? Do you get some kind of Good Samaritan award for helping the poor abused child, Roland? Do you feel like your life amounts to something? Like you're somehow better than you are?
"I just want you to think about your future," the Wise One goes on, smiling like a fatter version of Buddha. "You've got a few more weeks of school to go. Don't do anything to screw up at this point. You still haven't heard from all of the colleges you applied to, have you?"
I shake my head. Stanford, Yale, and MIT—the Holy Trinity—still haven't gotten back to me. And those are the schools.
"And be nice to Coach Kaltenbach today," he says. "He has a surprise for you."
Well, that's unexpected news. I want to ask what the surprise is, but I know Roland won't tell me; he'll just get off on having a secret from me. So I shrug like I don't care and tell him I'll be on my best behavior.
; "Good," he says, and then heaves a gigantic student file onto his desk. It's the one I saw last week, the one that's bigger than mine.
"You should move along to class. First period starts soon and you have to catch up. Please let Ms. Sellers know she can come in."
I leave Roland's office. In the outer office, sitting on a chair as far away from Miss Channing as possible, is a girl dressed in all black, her face as pale as a virgin Rawlings. She's wearing a necklace with a reverse smiley face on it—yellow on black.
"You Sellers?"
She glares up at me. I take it for a yes.
"He's ready for you." I jerk a thumb back toward Roland's office.
"What do I care?"
"Beats me."
"You seem happy coming out of there. Did he blow you, or was it the other way around?"
Which is what I should expect, I guess, but most people don't say it out loud. I just shrug and point to Roland's office again as I leave.
Coach kicks my ass later that day in practice.
Not literally, of course. Even he's smart enough to know better than to lay a hand on me. But he sticks me in the damn outfield and has me catching fly balls and running down line drives all day. By the end of practice, I'm exhausted and my eyes feel sunburnt from staring at the sky.
There are some perfunctory "welcome backs" from the guys when we hit the showers after practice, but nothing too emotional. Except for Zik, I don't have many friends on the team, which is fine by me. I don't like people my own age. Never have. Even before what happened with Eve. Mom used to say I was nine going on ninety. She used to joke that I was older than she was.
I spend some extra time in the shower, washing off the tired and the ache along with the dirt. I hear a sound and turn around to see Coach standing just on the other side of the tile threshold into the showers. His ball cap is jammed on his head just fine, so I guess the goose egg swelling has stopped. But there's still a massive ring of purple and black around the eye I popped.
"You gonna watch yourself from now on, Mendel?"
I grab my dick and point it at him. "Speak into the microphone, please."
"Stop fucking around, Mendel. You better watch yourself."
"You seem to be watching me just fine, Coach. How long have you liked watching boys in the shower?"
He gets flustered and makes a point of looking at some thing on the ceiling. "You little piece of shit. I should kick you off the team."
For a moment, there's just the sound of the shower and the water running off my body. We both know he won't kick me off the team. He needs me too badly. But it's the only threat that can make me sit up and take notice.
"Got your attention? Good. Because I got a question for you: You know the name Bill Graves?"
Bill Graves. The varsity baseball coach at Stanford. I talked to him during my recruiting trip. He was a little less psyched about me than I would have hoped.
"He's the guy at Stanford who holds your balls and your future in the palm of his hand. And guess what, Mendel? Over the weekend, he handed them over to me."
Coach grins an evil grin. "Graves is on the fence about you. Called me to ask some questions."
Oh, shit. There goes Stanford.
"They're impressed with you, Mendel. But they haven't made up their minds about an athletic scholarship. Because they've heard stories. Now..." He stretches and yawns as if bored with the whole thing. "Now I'm supposed to get back to him. Tell him what I think of you as a player. I can tell him a bunch of things, Mendel. I could tell him you're the best natural hitter I've ever seen. Or I can tell him that you like using your coaches like speed bags."
The water pelting me is hot, but my whole body's gone cold. "What do you want, Coach?"
He pretends to think about it for a second, but the bastard has known all along, of course. "You're playing shortstop again. Starting this week."
"What?" I would rather he pound the shit out of me! "We had a deal! I don't play in the field! I'm the DH!"
"Not for the rest of the season, Mendel. You're my bitch and I want you in the field. I need you in the field. You're a goddamn good fielder."
"So? There's ten other guys who can—"
"I need you in the field. But I'll leave it up to you—you can play in the field or not. But if you don't, then not only will I give a crappy report back to Graves, but we'll also damn sure never get top seed in the playoffs. Against the Sledgehammers. And Fieser."
Reggie Fieser. "The Heat," as he's known throughout Lowe County. He transferred in from some school in Texas right after Christmas break and promptly starting breaking school, then county, then state records left and right.
Oh, and he's a sophomore. He's the most feared arm in the state.
"Now I really got your attention, don't I?" Coach laughs. "You want a crack at him, don't you?"
"Maybe." But I have to admit, my hands are trembling a little bit. I figured I'd never get a shot at Fieser before I graduated. We already played Canterstown once this year before the Heat arrived. But in this state, every team goes to the first round of playoffs. And if we do well enough the rest of the season, we're guaranteed a seed that puts us against the Sledgehammers—the only way I'll get a chance to go up against the Heat.
"Here's the surprise part, Mendel. Are you ready for it?"
There's more?
"There's gonna be a scout in the crowd that day."
Holy shit! I try to keep the surprise off my face, but I fail dramatically and Coach laughs. A scout? In fucking Brookdale?
"For Canterstown, yeah, there'll be a scout," he says in answer to my unasked question. "So we have to get that seed position. He's here to see Fieser, but if you want a chance to show a scout what you've got, this is it."
There are never scouts in Brookdale.
"You could put Brookdale on the map," Coach goes on. "I get something and you get something. Like an athletic scholarship. How about it, Mendel? We got a deal?"
I offer him a slick, soapy hand. "Deal."
Chapter 14
Girlfriend
By the time I get home from practice, Dad is home from work, so we have one of our deep bonding conversations.
"Where's Mom?"
"She said she had to go to the mall after work. Probably still there. How was practice?"
"Not bad. I went five for five at the plate with two doubles."
"Who was pitching?"
"Grady."
"Oh." And he shrugs as if to say, Big deal. Your grandmother could go five for five against Grady. Which, you know, she probably could.
I check the pile of mail before going to my room. Nothing from the Holy Trinity. I'm getting antsy, I admit. Stanford won't base their admission decision on Coach's report to Coach Graves, but the all-important athletic scholarship hinges on that weaselly bastard.
Then again, maybe I won't get into one of the top schools. Maybe I won't get the scholarship or the financial aid. Just because I've got straight A's at South Brook High doesn't mean the world's going to drop to its knees in front of me.
I take my mind off it with my homework and catch-up work until my parents go to bed. As I'm noodling around on the Internet, the phone rings. Caller ID isn't helpful; I pounce on the phone before it can ring a second time.
"So are you planning on coming by or what?" Rachel asks.
"Rache, God! You can't call this late. My parents are in bed."
"You need to get a cell."
"Yeah, well..." There's no money for that, I know.
"You should come over to the Narc. I'm closing in a little while."
"I have a game tomorrow. I have to get some sleep."
"I have a game, too. I just miss you."
I don't know what to say to that. I lay back on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Do you miss me, Josh?"
The ceiling. Staring. Patterns in the stucco. Chaos theory in action.
"Josh? Are you there? I have to go soon. My manager is—"
"OK," I tel
l her.
"OK, what?"
"I'll come over."
I get to the Narc with fifteen minutes to go before closing. I scout from the parking lot quickly. There are only a couple of cars in the lot and neither of them is Eve's.
Of course, she could have gotten a new car, right? It's been five years. Would she have kept the old car all that time? Where would it be while she was in prison?
I give myself five minutes in the car, then get out and head inside.
Rachel's packing away deli meats and breads at the lunch counter. She smiles when she sees me and gives me a little wave—the tips of her fingers jiggling in the air. I don't know how she manages all this; work, school, softball. I do some Web programming over the summer and that keeps my car insurance paid up, but that's about it.
I look around the store, just in case Eve's here. It occurs to me that if I were a famous registered sex offender, I'd probably do my shopping late at night when no one else was around.
But she's not here. Rachel finishes up and emerges from the swinging double doors behind the lunch counter, untying her stubby ponytail to let her hair down over her ears. She flashes another smile at me and holds up a paper bag. "I made us some sandwiches."
Soon we're sitting out on the hood of her car in the parking lot, eating corned beef on rye with hot mustard.
"I can never sleep after work," she tells me, then lays back and gazes up at the stars. "I always have too much energy. Takes me an hour or more to get rested enough to sleep."
"How do you go on so little sleep? I was like a zombie the other day." It's true—I'm a total sleep wuss. I need my pathetic eight hours or I feel like a slug. I already know I will pay for this little encounter tomorrow at school.
She shrugs. "I don't know. I just do. I need to work. I need to go to school. We can't all be super-geniuses with full rides to College Park."
I don't say anything. She sits up. "Oh, come on, Josh. It was a joke. I didn't mean anything by it."
"OK."
She grabs my shoulders and starts massaging them. It feels good. "You're so serious. It's like you're a thousand years old. And Jesus! Your shoulders feel like stone! Relax."