Losers Take All

by David Klass

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked her.

  “I gave riding lessons to beginners last summer, so they gave me a key,” she said. “I made a copy before I gave it back.”

  “Have you ever snuck in before?”

  She got the lock open, and we slipped through. “Once or twice,” she whispered. She pulled the gate closed behind us and headed for the stable. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I thought you were a rule follower,” I whispered back.

  “No way,” she told me. “I’m just too smart to get caught.”

  She seemed to know the routines of this stable perfectly, and if she had done this before I figured we had a good chance of getting away with it.

  We slipped into the low-ceilinged barn and passed the silent horses in their dark stalls. Shadow was standing motionless and didn’t come to greet us as he had last time. “I don’t think he wants company,” I told Becca. “He looks zonked out for the night. Maybe we’d better leave him and go.”

  She swung the wooden door of the stall open and walked to him. The big horse didn’t move a muscle as she ran her hand gently along his nose, but he opened his big black eyes and stared back at her adoringly. “Feel like some exercise?” she whispered.

  “Sure,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I was talking to Shadow,” she told me. “We’re going for a ride.”

  “Don’t go too far. I’ll wait for you.”

  “You’re coming,” she informed me.

  “I’ve never been on a horse in my life.”

  She was already saddling him up. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  A minute later we were outside the barn, and she was leading Shadow by the bridle toward the back gate. I hadn’t realized how big he was—the horse towered over both of us. He never seemed to question what Becca had in mind, and I figured if Shadow was willing to go along with her then I would, too.

  The rear gate was unlocked, the way she had left it, and she swung it open. Shadow walked through and I followed him, more than a little worried. “Aren’t we stealing a horse?”

  “Technically he’s my horse,” she told me, closing the gate behind us. “And we’re just borrowing him. But if this makes you nervous, don’t come.”

  “Where exactly are we going?”

  “Watch what I do, and get on behind me,” she commanded. She stood on Shadow’s left side, put her foot in the stirrup, and in one motion swung herself gracefully up and onto the stallion’s broad back.

  I grabbed onto the horn of the saddle and put my left foot in the stirrup. As if sensing that I didn’t know what I was doing, Shadow stepped forward and I hopped after him, holding on for dear life. “Swing up,” Becca encouraged me.

  “I can’t. Put on the brakes!” I half shouted.

  Shadow stopped long enough for me to awkwardly pull myself up onto the saddle behind her.

  “There are no brakes,” Becca said with a laugh. “He’s not a car.”

  “He’s as big as a car,” I muttered, getting used to the feel of sitting behind her on the saddle.

  “Put your arms around my waist, and hold on to the reins with me,” Becca ordered.

  Pressed against her back, I held the reins where they came out of her hands. She must have stepped on the gas, because Shadow began to walk and then to trot. I was surprised at his speed and power—even at a trot we covered a lot of ground. Shadow didn’t seem to notice that he had two people on his back—lucky for him Becca was slim and my father always said I was as skinny as a splinter.

  That thought brought me back to the basement, and my memory of what I had said to him. I couldn’t forget the look in his eyes after I’d mentioned the career he’d never had in the NFL. I wasn’t sure where those words had come bubbling up from. I hadn’t intended to say them, and I’d never thought of my dad as a coward or a failure. Muhldinger had suggested some of it, and the idea that he’d planted an evil seed and instead of rooting it out I had carried it home gnawed at me. What would happen the next time I saw my dad? How could we get past it?

  Shadow sped up to a fast trot. I looked around, and for a long moment didn’t recognize where we were. The trees thinned out, and I glimpsed open spaces and moonlight glinting on water. “Are we on the golf course?”

  “The thirteenth fairway,” Becca told me.

  “How did we get on? I thought the course was fenced in and patrolled by security.”

  “Golf courses are too big to completely fence in,” Becca explained. “I know three different ways in, and I’ve never run into any security after hours.”

  “I’ve always heard the Mafia owns this course,” I told her. “I kind of believe it. No one I know from our town belongs.”

  “I’m sure the Mafia has better things to do than run a golf course in Fremont,” she told me. “You said you wanted to get away. This is where I come to do it. It feels like being on another planet. Just enjoy the ride.”

  So I tried. It was more than a little otherworldly to be on a horse’s back, cantering across fairways, picking our way through sand traps, and clop-clopping along the muddy banks of dark lakes. And I didn’t mind sitting behind Becca, with my arms around her, feeling my thighs against the back of her legs, while her back pressed against my chest.

  With each footstep Shadow took, Becca and I were thrown together in different ways, and I tightened my grip on her. Her sweet-smelling hair flew around my eyes, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer I bent down and kissed the back of her neck. She twisted around on the saddle to look at me, and smiled, and just as we kissed I heard a shout.

  I thought it was just a “Hey,” but there might have also been a “you” added on. Shadow stopped walking and stood still.

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered to Becca.

  “It wasn’t about us,” she said, sounding nervous. “Someone was calling to someone else, far away. The wind plays tricks with voices at night.”

  A flashlight beam pierced the darkness, raking white channels of light across the fairway. It hadn’t found us yet, but looking back along the beam I saw a guard in what looked like a golf cart, two hundred feet away. Something gleamed in his hand. It was either a flashlight or a gun.

  “We have to go over and explain things to him,” I whispered. “We’re not doing anything wrong. He’ll probably just let us go with a warning.”

  The beam licked closer to us, and instead of answering me Becca gave Shadow a little kick. He headed off down the fairway, moving swiftly and silently. “Do you want to get arrested for trespassing?” she asked. “I sure don’t.”

  I heard the motor of a golf cart roaring at full speed, and I could see other lights zooming down a slope toward us as more guards joined the chase. “No, but I also don’t want to get shot by a Mafia guard!”

  “They’ll never catch us,” she assured me. “Hold on.”

  We burst through a curtain of trees to the next fairway, and suddenly we were flying as Shadow broke into a gallop. Trotting had been rough, with every step tossing me up and down on the saddle, but now his strides were long and smooth. It felt like we were skimming five feet above the grass at a speed no golf cart could match.

  I held tightly on to Becca and wondered if we would get out of this. I could hear the motors of the golf carts in the distance, and every now and then a searchlight beam shone through trees near us.

  Shadow slowed as we entered a small woodsy area behind a tee box, and he picked his way carefully through dense underbrush. We reached the course fence with barbed wire at the top, and Becca guided us to where a large branch had fallen over and collapsed a section of it. Shadow stepped through the gap and immediately started trotting again. Soon we were on a path that led to a one-lane road, and I began to recognize a few landmarks.

  “If they saw us, won’t they call the stable?” I asked. “They’ll see hoofprints and figure out where we came from.”

  “There are three other stables nearby, and lots of people keep thei
r own horses,” Becca said. “They’ll never connect it to us. Did you enjoy the ride?”

  “Till the Mafia started chasing us.”

  We brought Shadow back to the barn, and I kept expecting someone to catch us but we got him safely in his stall. The whole place stayed dark and quiet.

  We rode our bikes back toward Becca’s house, and it felt a lot slower than being up on Shadow’s back at full gallop, but also much safer and more familiar. When we turned the corner of her block, I saw my mom’s Chevy parked out in front. I was tempted to ride away, but I knew I’d have to face this at some point. So we left our bikes in the garage and Becca led me through the back door.

  Our two mothers were sitting on the couch sipping tea and looking worried. My mom stood up when she saw me. She looked like she’d aged ten years in the past three hours. “Okay,” she said, relieved and angry, “now I’ve found you. We just need to find your father.”

  21

  Mom and I waited together in our family room, where there was a window that faced out toward the street and the entrance to our driveway.

  My father had driven away in his truck right after our argument in the basement. He hadn’t told my mom where he was going, so we didn’t have a clue when he planned to come home. He usually kept his cell phone with him, but it was lying on the kitchen counter where he had left it when he went down to hit the heavy bag. So there was no way to reach him and nothing to be done except to sit and watch for his truck’s returning headlights.

  During those long night hours, surrounded by our family trophies, Mom shared two secrets with me. First, she asked me what I’d said to my dad when we argued. I told her how I’d mentioned his college football injury and how he’d missed his chance to play in the NFL.

  She didn’t seem surprised—I think she’d heard most of what had gone on between us in the basement and guessed the rest. “It wasn’t really a football injury,” she told me.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “It happened in practice at the end of his senior year. A freak collision blew out his leg.”

  “That’s the story we always tell,” she agreed with a sad little nod, “and that’s what your brothers think, too. But that’s not what actually happened.”

  Headlights approached and we sat quietly and watched, but it turned out to be a passing car. When its taillights faded I asked her: “What really happened?”

  “It did happen when he was away at college. Your father was a fanatic about staying in shape and he used to jog everywhere around the campus,” Mom told me. “It was winter and he was running between classes. He turned to wave at a friend, and he slipped on a patch of ice.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “He wrecked his knee on some stupid ice? Why doesn’t he just tell the truth?”

  “He was the Logan Express,” she explained softly. “He’d never missed a game from grade school all the way through college. Nothing could ever slow him down. And then—when he had an NFL career right in front of him—he looked the wrong way for a split second and it was all gone. Can you blame him that it was too painful?”

  The family room grew smaller—the trophies pressed in on me like trees in a threatening forest. From the framed black-and-white poster on the wall, Mickey Mantle seemed to glance down at me as he belted his tape-measure home run and smirk, as if suggesting: “It’s all baloney, isn’t it?”

  “Could he really bust up his knee that badly wiping out on some ice?” I asked.

  “The doctors didn’t know if he would ever run again,” Mom explained. “It was a few years before he could do more than just walk fast. He came home after college and he took the first job he was offered, in construction. It was right near my house. We started taking walks together, and he would go on for miles as fast and as far as he could, limping on his right leg. I could see how much he wanted to break into a run. He was like a tiger in a cage—it broke my heart, but it also won my heart. I knew within a week that I couldn’t marry Brian, that your father and I would always be together.”

  “In some ways, I guess Dad was lucky,” I told her. “I take it Muhldinger didn’t let you go easily?”

  “They almost got into a fight right outside the post office,” Mom said. “It could have been really bad. But they knew that in the end it was my decision, and it was a fairly easy one for me to make.”

  “Muhldinger never got married, did he?” I asked.

  “I think he married the Fremont football team,” Mom said with a smile. “He’s done very well. If you’d told me when we were dating that Brian would ever become the principal of a high school, I would have fallen over.”

  “But Dad’s done okay, too,” I pointed out, remembering some of the nasty comments Muhldinger had made in his office. “I mean, he likes his job and he works with friends.”

  That was when Mom told me the second secret of the night. I saw her hesitate, and then she leaned forward. “To tell you the truth, Jack, things haven’t been going well for him at work lately.”

  “He hasn’t said anything.”

  “He never would. But there hasn’t been much new construction and his company has been downsizing. A few people in his crew have been let go, and they’ve cut his hours. He’s worried about what may happen in the next few months. That’s one reason I’ve applied to go on full-time at the library.”

  “They can’t fire him,” I said. “He’s worked there over twenty years.”

  “Some of the men who were let go had worked there even longer. It’s just a tough time.”

  I remembered the moment in the basement earlier that evening when I had told my dad that Becca was using our soccer team as a release because she was having a tough time at home. He had replied, “We all go through tough times.” It hadn’t occurred to me that he might be talking about himself. No wonder he’d been so tightly wound at my soccer game, and had gone down to pound on the heavy bag.

  Just before two a.m. my cell phone rang. I thought it might be my father calling in from somewhere, but when I glanced at the caller ID I was surprised. “It’s Becca,” I told my mom.

  “Isn’t it late for her to call?” she asked.

  “It must be something big.”

  “Go ahead and see,” Mom said. “I’m gonna get some water.”

  She left the room and I answered the call. “Hey,” I said, “what are you doing up?”

  “Thinking about you,” she said. “What’s happening with your dad?”

  “He’s still not home. Thanks for the horseback ride. I needed to get away.” I paused. “It felt good.”

  “I agree,” she said. Then there was a little silence, and she said softly, almost like she was scared, “I love you.”

  I knew I should say it back, but I had never said the words out loud to a girl. I hesitated for a long moment and then whispered her name. I hoped she heard how I felt from my voice.

  If she was disappointed she hid it well. She said, “Take care of yourself, Jack.”

  “I’m trying,” I said. “It’s really late. You should go to sleep.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she told me. “What’s going on is too exciting.”

  “What’s going on?”

  My mom came back into the room holding a glass of water.

  “I take it you haven’t been around a computer,” Becca said.

  “No, my mom and I have been talking.”

  “ESPN and CBS Sports News have both picked up the Losers story and embedded the video on their blogs.”

  “You’re kidding?” I asked.

  “We hit a nerve. The video has gotten two million hits.”

  For a second I felt dizzy. “Did you really just say two million?”

  “Two million people have seen Pierre throw up and Zirco fall in a lake.”

  “Wow,” I said. And then, “Holy crap.”

  “Two million people have also seen you score your goal. Good night, you sports god. Call me if you need me. I’ll keep my phone next to my bed.”

  I clicked my
cell off and Mom asked me what was going on. When I told her about the video and the two million hits, she couldn’t believe it. So I showed the video to her on my cell, and she stared at the little screen, smiling and shaking her head as my teammates screwed up and Muhldinger laced into us.

  When it was done, she handed my phone back and said, “Your team may be inept, but I think you’re going to be around for a while.”

  “Muhldinger said he was flushing us,” I reminded her. “I don’t see how he can go back on his word and unflush us.”

  “Something tells me he’s not going to have much of a choice,” she said. “And he may have to learn some better manners.”

  Another hour crawled by on the digital clock under the TV, and I was just starting to wonder if my dad would stay away all night when we saw familiar lights down the block. It was his truck, and he turned carefully into our driveway and shut off the engine. When his footsteps sounded on the back porch, my mom stood and walked out of the family room to meet him. I trailed after her, unsure what to do.

  I heard the back door open and shut, and my mom say, “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere special,” he answered.

  “We were worried about you.”

  “I know you were. Sorry.”

  I gave them a minute or two together, and then I took a deep breath and stepped out of the family room.

  They were standing together in the kitchen, holding each other. Dad was still in the black shorts and the T-shirt he had worn to hit the heavy bag. When he saw me, his arms fell away from my mother’s back. I couldn’t tell from his face if he was still angry at me or if he regretted what had happened. My best guess from the look in his eyes was that it was a little of both.

  All night long I had felt sorry for him and guilty for what I’d said about his injury and missed pro career, but when I saw him in that T-shirt I remembered what it had been like when he had lost his temper at me.

  My mother waited two or three seconds and then announced: “You two need to apologize to each other.”

  “Sorry, Jack,” my dad said in a low voice.

  “Me too,” I told him.

  My mother looked from one of us to the other. “That’s the best you can do?”