by Jeff Vrolyks
Theo whispered, “We can pop a few Vicodin together at your place tonight, have some fun. I’ll bring a bottle of vodka.”
She was so angry that a vein surfaced at her temple. Her face was a deep shade of pissed-off. She flipped him off. Such a gesture would be funny under other circumstances, but there was no humor in this bird. She meant every bit of it. Fuck you, Theo. Fuck… you.
Matthew glanced over his shoulder with a wooden face. Theo waved a few fingers at him jovially.
Doctor Gerhart swept into the main room with an orange bottle, no label on it. Smiling at Theo he said, “The larger ones are ten-milligram Vicodin, extra strength. Have him take one three times a day for a couple days. The smaller pills are the Diclofenac, and he should take those once every four hours, also for a couple days. There are about five days worth of each.” He handed over the bottle.
Theo pocketed the bottle and said, “I appreciate you giving me these without needing him to come in. I know you aren’t supposed to do that. How much do I owe you?”
“Not a red cent. They’re on the house. Unless you wouldn’t mind giving me an autograph,” he said coyly. “It will be worth a lot of money one day, not that I would ever sell it,” he said defensively, “I’m just saying, you have a heckuva future ahead of you.”
“I hope you’re right. We’ll see shortly, I guess. I’m entering the NFL draft this year. What about you, Matthew, what do you do?”
“Ignore him,” Carmen said to Matthew.
The doctor’s request had been a premeditated one, for the doctor handed over a prescription pad and pen. “If you wouldn’t mind, sign it to Gary. That’s my name.”
Theo smiled inside. This medical professional was as giddy as a teenaged girl. He signed the pad and handed it over, thanked him again for the medicine, and went to the door. Without making eye contact with her, he said, “See you at six-thirty tonight at your place, Carmen. I look forward to it. Oh, and Candice says hi.” He stole a glimpse of her as he opened the door and her face was red. Never had he seen a more baleful expression. She was hurting him physically with her eyes. He opened the umbrella and stepped outside.
He drove back to Clyde’s grinning at first, cherishing the trouble he had stirred up. But then he did something he didn’t do too often: thought about things from someone else’s perspective. Would Carmen blow this off, come to laugh at his antics eventually? No, probably not. He embarrassed her, severely. If Matthew decided he didn’t want to see her anymore, that would be just fine to Theo, but probably not for Carmen.
“Geez, what did I just do…?” he muttered inside the truck. “Oh well, what’s done is done.”
Once he parked in front of the pizza parlor, he groped out his cell and text Carmen: Are we still on for tonight? He sat staring at his phone for two minutes, then her response chimed in: Yes. Then we’re done. For good.
“Ah, man,” he drawled. He text: I was only playing.
When there was no response he shut the engine off and huddled under the umbrella as he made his way to the door.
“That was quick,” Candice said. “Was she not there?”
“She was. I think I upset her.” He folded the umbrella and handed it over the counter.
“Boys will be boys,” she said and put the umbrella under the counter. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. You pizza is still cooking.”
“I’ll wait, no problem.” He took the nearest seat. “Does she like Matthew a lot?”
“Not sure. I’d imagine so. He’s easy on the eyes. And very nice and sweet. Was he there?”
“Yeah. I said some dumb things. Oh well, huh?”
She was frowning at him. “What did you say?”
“Doesn’t matter. I think I offended her. And him.”
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you. If you apologize, that is.”
“Yeah, I will. How well do you know her? Did you go to school with her?”
“Yeah, same class.”
“Did she ever mention me?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Did she ever talk about football with you?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not into football so she wouldn’t have gotten much out of me in the way of conversation. Why do you ask? Do you play football?”
“Yeah, college football.”
“Oh yeah? I bet she must really like you then.”
“Used to. What does Carmen like? If I wanted to win her over, what would I give her?”
“We’re friends, but I don’t know the answer to that. I only know what she likes to order from here. She loves thin crust, pepperoni and olive.”
Theo nodded. “Could you make a large one to be picked up at six-thirty?”
“Sure. If you upset her, I hope you don’t expect a pizza pie to fix it.”
“I don’t. It’s a start, though. Hunger can make people cranky, so at least she’ll be good on that front.”
Candice shoveled the pie out of the oven and placed it in a box. She enjoyed meeting him, and he said the same, and see you at six-thirty.
Chapter Ten
The rain was coming down so hard that Carmen didn’t hear Theo knocking. Then he rang the doorbell. Theo was holding a pizza box, and was already wet from the short trip from truck to porch. She invited him in and closed the door. He smoothed back his wet hair, put the box on the counter and looked around. It was smaller than the cabin, only one room and a bathroom, small kitchenette. The decorum was simple and Spartan. There was a wooden cross on a wall.
“It sure is coming down,” he said. “Do you want to go tomorrow instead?”
“No, let’s get it over with. You brought me pizza? Thanks.” She opened the box and delighted that it was just how she liked.
“Yeah. I almost bought an umbrella but thought you might have a couple.”
“I have one. We can share, I guess.” She pulled out a pair of plates and a two-liter bottle of Coke from the fridge.
“I’m glad you aren’t upset with me.” He accepted the plate and put a slice on it.
“Are you kidding me? Of course I’m upset with you.”
He studied her. “You don’t seem to be.”
“I am. I just hide it well.” She poured Coke in two glasses. “The thing is, I’m happy you came by today and behaved as you did.”
“Are you being facetious?”
“No, honestly.” She handed him a glass and sipped from her own. “Before that, I was torn. I like Matthew a lot, but I also liked you. To what degree, I wasn’t really sure. But you fixed that. Matthew is for me. So thank you, Theo.”
He almost took a bite of pizza and instead put it down. “I’m sorry how I acted. I don’t know why I did it.”
“I do. It’s what you’re used to. I’m sure everyone laughs at your jokes, even when they aren’t funny. Even if you weren’t handsome, women would tell you that you are. You can do no wrong in most people’s eyes. It’s a good thing you aren’t staying in town for long because people respect athletes, you have fans here. If they learned the real you, they’d think twice about things. Doctor Gerhart wouldn’t stop talking about you after you left. He acted as though you were a saint, and was disappointed that I hadn’t introduced you sooner. If only he knew the extent of what you were up to today, trying to get the man I’m seeing to think I’m having an affair with you, or whatever it was you were doing, I’m not even sure. I was humiliated, though. You succeeded in that.”
“I’m sorry, Carmen. From the bottom of my heart.”
“The bottom of your heart isn’t deep enough.” She took a bite of her pizza. “But I do forgive you. Not just because God says to forgive one another, but because I think you are sincere. I also think you’d do it again at the next opportunity.”
“Fuck it, I give up. If you want to hate me, hate me. Let’s do this and like you said in your text, be done.”
“Don’t curse around me. And yes, let’s get going soon.”
They ate in silence, put the dishes in the sink, and g
ot a move on. Carmen put on her waders, opened the umbrella and handed Theo a flashlight, the larger of the two. It was a little after seven and already dark. The sky flashed white, blackness swallowed it up. A second later thunder cracked. The hair on Theo’s neck bristled.
“It’s actually shorter from here than it was at my parents,” she said loudly, competing with the rain. “It’s due east. If we’re fast, we’ll be there in ten minutes.”
They moved off the property into the tall wet grass. His jeans would be soaked through in minutes, umbrella or not. He wished he had brought his waders. Two beams of light fanned the ground before them. Theo was doing all he could to keep up. He leaned in beside her, shoulders touching, umbrella low. More lightning and thunder. Theo buttoned the top button of his jacket, his teeth were chattering.
“I think I’m going to come back out Memorial Day, with my dad. There’s no reason to stay away anymore.” She didn’t reply to him. “Maybe a week a year.” She still said nothing. “We might try hunting, too.”
“Good luck.”
He looked at her. She met his eyes briefly before returning them to the invisible path before them. “What do you want me to say, Theo? Stop by and say hello when you arrive?”
“I’d like that.”
She shook her head and sighed. “I’d rather not talk right now.”
There was yipping off in the distance. “Coyotes,” she said.
“Why are they doing that?”
“They probably killed something. They get excited.”
“What if we run into some? Or a bear? Or mountain lion?”
She grinned and looked over at him. “Are you frightened? Big strong man, scared?”
“It’s an honest question. What if something attacks us.”
“Then I’ll kill it.”
“You’ll kill it? How? With kindness?”
“No, with a twenty-two.”
“You have a gun?”
“Yep.”
“Cool. I feel better knowing that.”
“I might let it get a bite or two on you before I shoot it, though.”
“Gee thanks. Just don’t let it bite my right arm, please. It’s worth a great deal of money to whoever drafts me.”
“You think you’re so great, don’t you.”
“God, Carmen, I think you’re being a little unfair with me. I fucked up, I admitted it. Can we move on?”
“Watch your mouth and I asked you an honest question. You think you’re great. The best quarterback in the country.”
“Hell no. The best quarterback in the country is Tom Brady. I’m not even close.”
“I mean in college football.”
“Oh. I’m one of the best, yeah.”
“Admit it, you’re the best. You got robbed of the Heisman, didn’t you?”
“No, Dante deserved it. I expected him to win and he won. I’m not as arrogant as you think.”
“Who do you have to thank for your success, for your talent?”
“God,” he answered without thought.
She looked over. “You mean that?”
“Of course. It’s His will that I play. Does that surprise you?”
“A little.” Then, “A lot. I didn’t know you had faith.”
“I am weak, a poor Christian, but I know He exists. Everything I have and everything I have achieved I owe to Him.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” she said and smiled at him.
“Carmen,” he said after a stretch of silence, “you’ve seen the effects of poor parenting on a child before, right? Like a kid in a grocery store screaming that he wants this and that and will hold his breath till he turns blue if he doesn’t get it. A kid who runs around and wreaks havoc on everybody.”
“I suppose.”
“Is it the child’s fault for his behavior or his parents?”
“I suppose the parents. Had he been raised correctly, he’d have known he couldn’t get away with that and wouldn’t try.”
“Right. I bet you rarely see a pair of siblings where one is well behaved and the other is a hellion. Their parents either discipline them or they don’t.”
“Okay, what are you getting at?”
“I guess you had a point earlier, about me getting whatever I want. About people laughing at my jokes, just because they’re from me. I don’t mean to say I am without accountability, but to a degree I am a result of my circumstance, fame at such an age. I don’t want to be like this, I don’t want to make you miserable. But I am, and I do. These last few years have conditioned me to be indifferent to other people, in that they aren’t as important as I am. You saw the doctor today, he gave me a controlled substance, Vicodin, without second thought. Had I asked for more, he’d have given them to me. That’s how life is for me. I am under the impression that Stanford University attendance is up because the football team is good, and I made them that way. That I am the most important person at that school. Without me the team wouldn’t have been ranked number four in the nation, and without a number four ranking, the school wouldn’t be able to recruit top high school football athletes, because they’d want to go to a college with an excellent football program. If I show up to practice a half hour late, nobody says anything. If one of my linemen show up just five minutes late, they get written up and reamed. When I go to a club or bar near campus, people cheer and buy me drinks, hang all over me and ask for autographs and pictures. If a girl recognizes me, she wants to sleep with me, hoping that it will lead to a relationship and she’ll be married to a star quarterback. Do you see where I’m coming from? With all of this, how else would I act? It’s not an excuse for behaving however I want, but it is a reason. If I were a stronger person maybe none of that would have affected me, but I’m not. I’m just a man, flawed like any other. I can’t be like Matthew. I don’t think I’d ever be how you wanted me to be. God is at the center of your life, and everyone’s life in Cedar Hills. God is in my life, but I’m at the center. I’m selfish.”
“Wow, Theo. I can’t believe you just said all that. I wouldn’t want you to be like everyone else in town, I just want you to be you. It’s hard for me to sympathize with you, I’ll never relate to your level of success and fame. So it’s a little unfair for me to expect fame would have no affect upon you. At least you see things for how they are.”
“So does that mean we can be friends?”
“Yes, I think that would be good.”
“Great.”
They trod along. Theo had no idea what their environment was until lightning would strike, and then he’d see far into the distance. They were on a plain, bushes and precious few trees. What trees there were were black and dead, corpses of a past fire.
The ground sloped upward, and the next flash of lightning showed them breasting the side of a hill. Once they crested the hill they walked down a mild slope. A tree was in their path. Theo slanted to walk around it, Carmen shone her light on a section of its trunk.
“Look,” she said.
Theo got closer and saw what was carved into it. It brought him back ten years. T.G. with C.H. below it. But it wasn’t exactly as it had been. There was a heart carved around the two sets of initials. The sight of it struck him at the heart. A painful throb in his chest. It wasn’t just that it was touching, it filled him with regret. He envisioned an eleven year old Carmen, sitting on her bed writing Theo a letter, choosing every word carefully as she poured the contents of her heart out. Maybe she’d doodle a little on the paper, draw a fish or a bear. She’d mail the letter in one of her parent’s nicer envelopes, reserved for personal letters to family and friends. And she’d have mailed it with a smile. A couple days later she’d check the mail, riffling through the envelopes looking for a letter addressed to her. Maybe she’d check the mail for weeks before giving up. But that wasn’t the end of it for Carmen. No, it couldn’t have been, because she wrote another letter, and then another, none of which were replied to. Eventually that little pilot-light of hope burning inside her chest
flickered out. And what did Theo do with these letters? He supposed he must have given her his address all those years ago, even though he couldn’t remember doing it, but did he ever think he’d receive mail from her? And if he did, would he care? No, he’d throw them away without opening them because to remember her was to remember the mine, and the man whose life he took. Eleven is too young to be in love, anyone older than eleven will tell you that much. But it’s not too young to give your heart to someone. This heart carved around the initials was done so by a girl who was too young to define love, but not too young to exhibit signs of being in it. He had moved her, touched her to the foundation of her heart, and then packed up and fled, became a ghost. A ghost who would forever haunt her, using football as a medium.
Carmen was smiling down at the carving, which was a little low now that they’d grown a foot or so.
“What did your letters say?” Theo asked.
“The letters I sent you when I was eleven and twelve? And thirteen?”
“You wrote me for that long?” he said, the pain in his heart almost unbearable at the thought.
“Yeah, but it’s okay. I kind of didn’t expect you to return them. It’s not a big deal. We were kids.”
“It is a big deal, don’t say that. It breaks my heart to think that you were waiting for me and got nothing. I am such a shit.”
“It’s understandable, Theo. That’s sweet of you to say, but it makes sense, why you wouldn’t respond to me or come back. We killed a man, and to remember me is to remember him. I don’t take it personally.”
Theo swept a lock of her hair out of her face and kissed her cheek, embraced her in his arms. “I wish I could go back in time,” he murmured.
“You’re a hard man to figure out, Theo.”
“Why do you even bother with me.” He let go of her.
“When you’re like this, I remember why I had such a hard time getting over you. When you act like, the other way…”
“There is no more other way. You have my word.”