by Chris Lynch
“Well,” she says, holding my elbow the way you would with an elderly person, “I’ve never tried, but from what I’m seeing with that leg, I like my chances.”
“Fine,” I say, “that’s just terrific. You should show up for practice tomorrow in my place. Then at least one of us will have a chance of beating out Christian and Tory and send them packing back to soccer where they belong. Soccer.”
She is honestly trying to help me get over this, get over myself is probably what she thinks.
“Are they really jerky?”
“No,” I snap, throwing my arms up and causing her to pull away from me. “They’re excellent guys, actually. And they just kept getting more decent as I got more pathetic. Which makes me completely furious.”
I must sound in dire need of therapeutic care now, because Joyce wades right in through the fog of idiocy I’m casting and puts a firm arm around my waist. I’m so stunned by this that I find myself staring at her hand on my hip for several strides.
“You, Mr. Sarafian, are a pretty wound-up guy, I’m starting to realize.”
“No, you’re not,” I insist. “And I’m not.”
“Well,” she says coolly, “then I guess you’re not. My mistake. All the same, I wish they weren’t such sticklers about carding up at the student union there, or I’d buy you a nice relaxing drink right now.”
We’re passing the complex where the college’s social scene is clustered: the union, arts center, movie theater, post office, pharmacy.
“That’s a very thoughtful gesture, Joyce, thank you. But I don’t drink anyway.”
“Ah,” she says in the politely confident way she says most things. The way I wish I could say anything. “You’re of the ‘my body is a temple’ persuasion then?”
“Well, yeah,” I say, “that’s pretty much it.”
“Too bad. I’d say if anybody could benefit from a medicinal tipple or two, it would be you. And I do have some wine up in my place.”
Ah, now look at this. The new life is, seriously, throwing up a lot more challenges than I was planning on. It was supposed to get simpler here, much simpler, was the very soul of this plan, a good plan, a good soul.
“Well, what I was meaning by that, anyway, Joyce, probably I could have done a better job saying what I mean. I could, probably, always stand to be more precise with my words than I am. . . .” I almost wish she wasn’t up against me like she is, her arm around me, my arm over her shoulders. It’s one of the berserkest things I ever almost wished, but it’s because I’m worried she must be able to feel me trembling with overexcited nerves. “I’m not a freak, is what I mean to say. I’m not a fanatic or whatever. And yes, uh-huh, a glass of wine sounds like a tremendous idea, thanks, I would love to . . .”
Tremendous? Sheesus, Sarafian.
“Great,” she says, giving me a quick hard pulse of a squeeze. “I believe that’s a wise decision.”
“It feels wise,” I say.
“Indeed. I think even your limp is suddenly cured. Look at that.”
She’s right. There are, I’m sure, perfectly sound physiological reasons for this miracle, reasons that don’t at all suggest I’m a fraud or a wimp or a simplemind or a hypochondriac or a lying conniving manipulator, but I have no idea how to even begin that discussion. But I do know I need to fill the space with better thoughts than those.
“Yeah,” I say breathlessly. “That’s amazing. Listen, as long as you have those kind of magic powers to take away pain—which I totally believe, by the way—would you mind while you’re at it just kind of rerouting that pain to those other two guys for me?”
“Charmer,” she says. “Comical charmer.”
Better things. Those are better things combined in those words, way better than the worst things somebody could think about a guy if they chose to.
“Just see what you can do,” I say.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she says.
I have to fight every impulse inside me that’s dying to say I’m already seeing it, what she can do.
She can do so much by doing just a little, and she has no idea.
• • •
“Keir?” the warm Dream Voice says, the way the Dream Voice always says.
“Mmm,” I say back, the way I always say back.
“You’re very strong,” she says, “and this is so great. And I could do this all day. Except that I can’t. And you can’t either. We have things to do. Keir? You have to let go now. We both have places to be.”
It takes minutes, and layers of thought, to work my way up out of deep perfect sleep, to shallow perfect dreamy-woozy, to real-world realization.
And the realization is better than the dreams.
I am lying on my side in the bed of the girl. I have both arms wrapped decisively around her and can think of no reason to ever do anything else.
Joyce, unfortunately, can think of reasons.
“I’m having trouble breathing,” she says. “You’re squeezing too hard.” When I fail to take the hint, she grabs my hands and forcefully pries them off her rib cage. Then she holds on to the hands, which is a fine trade. “Also, I have an appointment to meet with a professor in twenty minutes,” she says.
“Professor who?” I say.
She is already wriggling because I’m working to reestablish my python grip on her.
“Professor Not-Your-Concern,” she says firmly. “And are you not supposed to be lining up right about now for your last chance to show the football staff what you’ve got? Or was that just you talking big stuff last night?”
“Shit,” I say, releasing my magnificent captive exactly according to her plan. I scramble off my side of the bed as Joyce scrambles off hers, and I pray to whoever still accepts prayers these days that she isn’t already longing for the time when both sides were still hers.
“Go get ’em,” she says kindly, shoving me out the door.
• • •
It’s hard to tell exactly, whether events—Joyce-related events—have improved me physically to the degree that I am bounding like a wild mustang across campus, but that is just how it feels. I’m covering the yardage between her place and mine with such speed and power and agility that there is no way anybody beats me out for any position once I carry this over to the playing field.
“Are you better now?” Fabian asks as I burst through the door.
“Better than what, Fabe-u-lous?” I ask loudly, stopping to sandwich his concerned face between my hands.
For once, he’s caught semi-speechless, but quickly catches up. “Better than yesterday,” he says, like an accusation. “Better than—”
“You can stop right there, my good friend. Because the answer is yes, regardless. I am better. Better than ever, better than everyone, better than . . . everything. What you got? Whatever it is, I’ll better it on this fine morning. It’s a fine morning, isn’t it, Fabian?”
I go to my closet and pull out my sweats and throw last night’s clothes every which way.
“You know, Keir,” Fabian says, standing by close enough to give me the eye of disapproval.
“I know,” I say. “Whatever it is, I don’t know, but I know.”
I see out of the corner of my manic, lucky eye that he is following the flight of every item I throw. And I know that he’s going to collect everything and put it all right after I’m gone, and I know that I don’t deserve him.
“Yeah. And now I’ll say the thing I was actually going to say, whether you know it or not. Which was, you know, Keir, a guy like me would think . . . that is, a guy like me is rather shocked, that a guy like you, stud-ish, football jock, one of life’s obvious chosen ones, should get all discombobulated over some attention from a girl. Or, like yesterday, that you should get all rattled because there’s some competition in camp. Isn’t this what you guys are all about? Isn’t this exactly what makes you guys you guys, as opposed to us? I mean, frankly, I was expecting some sterner stuff, a little bit of love-’em-leave-’em kind of busi
ness that I could at least, for once, witness if not, you know, ever personally experience.”
This takes me completely by surprise, and I go rigid. I’m not even sure what it is that gets me. His nerd’s-eye view of life on the other side is probably pretty common, so that couldn’t be it. Maybe because he is so, so, so wrong about me? Again, not an unfamiliar situation for me to find myself in, so this shouldn’t completely immobilize me either.
“Keir?” he says with what I think is deep concern in his voice.
That’s it.
“Keir? Are you all right? Should I do something?”
That’s it. That’s exactly it.
“All right, Keir, you’re creeping me out now. If you don’t tell me to do something or not to do something immediately, then I’m going to do something. I don’t know what I’ll do, but it’ll be something.”
I reanimate, just for him. I turn his way slowly, taking in the decent, goofy-ass concerned look on his face. “Don’t do something,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “Everything’s cool.”
“Okay, well, if it’s all cool, don’t do that upright rigor mortis thing again. Deeply unsettling, that one . . . Are you laughing at me? Stop laughing at me.”
“I apologize, Fabian, sincerely, man. Sometimes my face, and my voice, and my body language and whatever, they don’t come together and say what I really mean. It only sounded like laughing at you. What it was in reality . . . right, I don’t know if there’s even a name for it. But . . . here’s the thing, the point, what I’m still . . . It’s phenomenal to me . . .”
He checks his watch, being very obvious about it, tapping the crystal and everything.
“You think about me. Like, when I’m not even here and all. I still, you know, exist for you after I’m gone, before I return. And it’s not the kind of thinking people probably mostly do when a guy leaves the scene, like what a jackass, what a whole lotta hole that guy is. None of that.”
It seems like I’ve got him pretty well puzzled by this point. “No, of course none of that. Why should I think any of that? You’re my friend.”
It’s a big thing, probably a bigger thing than it looks, that he is causing me to lean in close. To study his honest good-guy face. He is an honest, good guy. And I’m his friend.
“It just kind of boggles my mind, is all,” I say, and I hope the grateful I feel is there in my voice.
“Well,” he says, “at least now we know what’s boggling it.”
And even though I am aware of being late, I am likewise aware of not, at this moment, caring much. It occurs to me that this is one of those times when a guy should slow down, take the extra minute or two to breathe in and appreciate good things.
I don’t even close the dresser drawers or my closet door on my way to stretching out on the bed.
“That’s my bed,” Fabian says.
“Man, you do get hung up on silly things. What, are you afraid I got cooties or something that you might catch?”
“I’ve got no idea what you might have. But if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to catch it the fun way, like you did.”
“Ha,” I say, “you make a good case, my friend.” I get up off his bed and take the five-stride glide over to my own, beneath the window. The view out there, the mountains rolling under a clear bright sky, is one of the three fine things I’ve lucked into here at Carnegie. It fills me with a kind of awe that I never quite found . . . anywhere else. I think that if I ever lose that awe, that’s when I’ll be worried about myself.
“Your father really misses you,” he says, striking thunder and lightning through the flawless day I can see right in front of me.
“My life isn’t like that, you know,” I say instead of whatever it is he wants me to say.
“Did you hear what I said? He just wants to talk to you once in a while. To hear your voice, know you’re okay.”
“I never even had a girlfriend. Not ever. Are you surprised? Well, it’s true. It’s true and it’s because. Because I was always in love. Always, from the beginning of time, I’d say. I was too much in love to ever even try to have a girlfriend.”
“Um, yeah, I guess I’m surprised. It’s kind of nice, I think. Weirdly noble? Nobly weird?”
“Let’s go with the first one there, huh?”
“Okay, Weirdly Noble, how about calling Ray?”
“Okay, well, how about not calling him Ray. You’re not his son, so you’re not allowed to call him Ray.”
“I might not be his actual son, but at least I talk to him.”
“Dog and bone, dog and bone, dog and bone.”
“And he’s an excellent guy, by the way. A really lovely guy to talk to. I look forward to his calls.”
“You have to stop answering my phone. And if I turn it off, leave it off,” I say, forcing myself to stop looking at the sky in order to give him a glare, and all the more irritated as a result.
“Carry it with you then, like I keep saying.”
I spring up off my bed, bending right into the crucial task of stretching out my hamstrings. “I have to get going,” I say, hopping in place, toggling my head around to get my neck muscles loose. “I have an important morning in front of me, cracking heads and taking no names. I have to show these guys some of the old stickin’, because I won’t be doin’ no kickin’.”
“Good luck,” Fabian calls as I stomp across the room and out the door. “Don’t get killed or anything.”
He has no idea what he’s talking about, and I have no interest in educating him. Because right now I’m already someplace else. Someplace very much else.
• • •
The field I am approaching now is already wild with football intensity. As it should be. The last chance for guys to show what they’ve got before the final roster cuts, and I felt the buzz of desperation energy basically the instant I stepped out the front door of the residence halls.
“Coach Muswell,” I call, running faster as I get closer to the action.
He and several assistants are on the near sideline, with their backs to me as they face onto the field. If Coach hears me call, he doesn’t show it.
“Coach,” I say, stepping right up in between him and the assistant closest to him.
He doesn’t even look at me. “Late, Sarafian? For the very last session before final cuts? I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
“I am, Coach, I am smart. And I really want to get a chance to show you. I’m sorry about being late, it’ll never happen again. It was my roommate. He was having this crazy insane mental crisis, and he woke up screaming and I had to get him down to the clinic because he couldn’t calm down and I had to phone his dad, and I knew it was going to get me in hot water with you and possibly cost me a spot on the team ultimately, but while I did take all that seriously into consideration, I had to make a tough call under pressure, and I decided risking the consequences on the football side was going to be secondary to doing the only right thing and getting my friend the critical care he needed.”
He turns just his big Coach head, like an owl with a baseball hat on. He blinks at me a few times, curls his lip, and says, “Get some pads on.”
When I return in no time all geared up, he makes things plain for me, and I welcome that.
“Keir, here’s where we’re at. You are unexpectedly on the bubble. I honestly do not know whether I am going to have a Sarafian on my roster to start the season or not. I am sure there are many reasons for why we’ve gotten to this point, but the only thing that matters is that it’s happened and neither one of us is happy about it. Unless I’m mistaken and you don’t particularly care, which, frankly, is how you have looked on the field a lot of the time.”
“No, sir, Coach!” I bellow like a lunkhead, like they taught us the first session of the first tryouts for freshman football back in high school. Coaches love and admire the lunkhead bellow, and I can produce a quality one when required. “I am not happy about it. I’m gonna show you today. I’m giving you everything I got, lea
ving it all out there on the field so when you make your decision, you’ll know it’s the real me you’re getting.”
“Good,” he says, nodding approval that I’m at least singing the song. “That’s good, son, because as I told you before, these scholarships are very precious commodities here, and so far you haven’t given me a lot of cause to believe that I spent this one wisely. And by now, I think you’ve already become aware that you’d be no better than third on the depth chart as a kicker—where the depth chart doesn’t really extend beyond two.”
“I do realize that, Coach. Those two guys are otherworldly.”
“Damn fine boys too. I rate that highly, you know. I want fine young men, strong character types, good students who represent the Saints proudly at all times.”
“Yeah,” I say flatly. “They are awesome inside and out.”
“Well, now’s your chance, and I suggest you be likewise awesome inside and out. Now, the assistants are running the show. There are a whole lot of different schemes and situations they’ll be testing you guys with, so be prepared, be smart, listen to audibles, be prepared to make changes on the fly, and finish your tackles. You’ll be on at cornerback with the defensive B squad.”
“Coach?” I know this is the worst time imaginable to be interrupting him at all, never mind daring to give him suggestions on strategy or personnel. But if I don’t, I’m going to fail and none of this will matter anyway.
“What?”
“I’m not a cornerback.”
He sighs, the way a police dog would sigh. “Yeah, I think we had this conversation once, back at the beginning. Well, guess what? You’re not a kicker anymore either.”
“I know, I know. I’m just saying, back at school, when I was at my best, aside from the kicking, I was a free safety. I got by when I was needed at corner, but I’m not great at man-to-man, and I’m not blazing fast, especially not at this level. I’m afraid I’d get exposed pretty quickly.
“But what I did, what I got kind of famous for, was playing in the middle, facing the play. I can read an offense, Coach. I can be in the right place at just the right time, and I can hit. When I really commit to it, I can hit as hard as anybody you’ve got. I was renowned for my ability to deliver a hit.”