Gut Check

by Eric Kester

  A frown nestled into Murray Miller’s curved mustache. “I suppose I could skedaddle,” he said. “But I can’t leave without a quote or two.”

  “Yeah, okay. I mean, probably. I’ll tell Coach. You know Brett doesn’t do interviews, but maybe we can send over Trunk Greenhammer or someone.”

  Murray Miller shook his head. “Naw, I don’t need to talk to Trunk. Heck, I don’t even care about interviewing Brett. I’m here to talk to you, the newest member of the team!”

  Murray Miller must’ve been confused. “Well, tryouts are still happening,” I explained.

  “Not according to this final roster, they’re not.” Murray Miller unfolded a single sheet of paper in his tiny hands. “Coach Stetson gave me the roster this morning. Very official. Take a look.”

  My hands were trembling as I took the roster. I scanned down to the bottom. There, listed right below “Parker, Brett,” was my very own name. Not “Brett’s Little Brother.” Not “Thor, God of Thunder.” But “Parker, Wyatt.” Sophomore. Right tackle. Number 67.

  I felt so happy I could puke.

  Murray Miller must’ve felt uncomfortable being a part of this little moment I was having with myself, because he softly cleared his throat before interrupting. “Gee, don’t look so surprised, kid. Now, mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

  Murray Miller reached into the pocket of his corduroys and pulled out a mini notepad. My pulse was jackhammering. I was still trying to process the news, and now I had to give an interview? Soon my thoughts would travel from my mouth to that notepad, then to Murray Miller’s typewriter, then to the entire town, to my team, to my whole school.

  With this blast of anxiety came a second kind of rush, one that I’d never really felt before. It was like adrenaline, but more than that. A part of me felt like: You know what, Wyatt? You’re on varsity now, and hell yeah people want to talk to you and hear your thoughts and your one-liners and your scoops. And you know what else? You deserve this attention. You worked your ass off this summer. You earned this.

  Man, that moment was energizing, standing there with Murray Miller, the town’s megaphone, as he held pencil to notepad. This was what it was like to experience pride. And not superficial pride like when you get a triple kill in Call of Duty but real, actual, in-your-heart pride, the kind that comes when, for a brief and surreal moment, your inner voice and the outside world synchronize to say in a single confident declaration: You did good.

  “First question,” Murray Miller said, angling his notepad to protect it from the slanting wind and rain. “How, in your opinion, is Brett feeling about the season?”

  Oh.

  I should’ve known. I really should’ve. Brett’s a quiet guy, an impossible nut to crack, so people have always tried to get in his head through me, the guy who’s shared a bunk with Brett for the last sixteen years.

  “Brett and I have talked a lot about this upcoming season,” I lied. “A lot. And he told me that he’s excited.”

  “About…?”

  “The season.”

  “I see.”

  A row below us, my dad sighed and got to his feet. He took his knife and slowly made his way down the bleachers, one half step and one grimace at a time. He’d move by taking a regular stride with his left leg followed by a long, looping swing of his right leg, which was stiff as a board. Dad messed up his hip in the championship game of his senior season, and now twenty-five years later the doctor said all the cartilage in his right socket was gone. With each step bone was grinding on bone. He needed a hip replacement, but when Dad saw the surgery cost he said he could catch every fish in the sea and still not have enough dough to pay that type of goddam bill.

  When Dad reached the bottom row of the bleachers he sat down and continued watching and knife-spinning.

  “So far Brett’s looking like he hasn’t missed a beat,” Murray Miller said. “Have you noticed any limitations from the … um, you know … from what happened last year?”

  Both of us looked down at the field, where Brett roped another bullet to a streaking wideout.

  “He seems good to me,” I said.

  “So Brett’s fully recovered, right?” Murray Miller asked.

  “I think so.”

  “And in good shape?”

  Three days after the surgery to reset the bone, my dad got Brett a used stationary bike. We had no clue how Dad got it to our duplex, considering we didn’t own a car. I joked that maybe Dad had ridden the bike home. That got a laugh outta Brett. And even though he was real high on painkillers at the time, I felt something like pride in my joke.

  “Yes, Brett’s in good shape.”

  “And it’s fair to say that Derek Leopold and Blakemore have something major to worry about this coming Friday?”

  I sensed what Murray Miller was trying to do here, and I was pretty impressed with myself for recognizing it. There was no way I was going to get suckered into insulting Blakemore and giving them “bulletin-board material” for inspiration. Luckily, I’ve watched enough NFL interviews to know the art of giving non-answer answers.

  “Well, we respect Blakemore as a team,” I said. “We’re going to come out and try to run the football early. We’ll also try to pass the football early. We’ll kick the football early, too, if we lose the coin toss.”

  “Yes,” Murray Miller said with restrained frustration. “But we’re going to get revenge on Friday, right?”

  “I just want to thank God and my teammates for the opportunity to play Friday.”

  “Yes, yes,” Murray said dully. He wasn’t writing any of this down. “But it’s fair to say we’re looking good again, right? That Grayport’s going to be back on top?”

  And then something occurred to me. As I looked down at Murray Miller with his wide imploring eyes and his furry little mustache, as I took in his faded tweed jacket with holes so big you could see them through his cloudy plastic poncho (which also had holes), I realized that Murray the Reporter didn’t need assurance of our dominance so much as Murray the Grayport Resident did. All of Grayport needed it. Every day the town opens the Grayport Gazette to see a blast of the usual headlines: Crime is up, jobs are down, and the rain will be sideways. But when the annual Football Preview hit the stands in three days, they’d also get to read some good news: Grayport football is back and ready to kick some effing ass.

  “You know what, Murray Miller?” I said, suddenly emboldened. “Come kickoff Friday, we’re going to punch Blakemore right in the mouth. In fact, you might even say we’re going to go bitchcakes.”

  “Bitchcakes?”

  “Bitchcakes.”

  “Alright, bitchcakes.” Murray Miller giggled and wrote this down. I started feeling that adrenaline-type rush again, but now it was laced with a lust for revenge. I fueled the fire by thinking of Derek Leopold and how all he got was a personal foul for his hit on Brett. And while Brett spent the next year on a stationary bike with his arm in a cast, Leopold went on to lead the county in tackles and sacks, become the league MVP, and make a verbal commitment to play college ball at USC, where it never rains and where the water is too warm for mackerel.

  “Not sure I can say ‘bitchcakes’ in the paper,” said Murray Miller between giggles. “Got another way of putting it?”

  Unlike Nate, I didn’t have a big brother who kept me updated on the coolest new lingo. But I did remember Trunk bragging in the locker room about how that summer he took some kid named Tyler to Pound Town. That sounded decent enough.

  “Let’s just say we’re pretty fired up to take Derek Leopold to Pound Town.”

  Alright, I’m going to pause a moment to share three important points with you. Maybe you already knew them, but I sure as hell didn’t:

  First, Tyler can sometimes be a girl’s name. Second, “Pound Town,” it turns out, is typically located in bed, on a couch, or in the back seat of a car. And, finally, to get to “Pound Town,” you don’t take the Pain Train, as I thought. You take the Boner Express to Penetration Station.r />
  Of course Murray Miller knew none of this either. “‘Pound Town’—I love it,” he said, furiously scribbling on his notepad. “This really is good stuff. ‘Pound Town,’” he repeated. “I mean, that’s headline material right there!”

  “We’ve been waiting all summer to take these guys to Pound Town,” I added. “We know they’re into being dirty. But you know what? We can get dirty, too. We’re gonna stuff them. And as Coach Crooks said just today, we’re gonna to keep coming and coming and coming.”

  “This is perfect. Just perfect,” Murray Miller said, still scribbling. “And I can quote you on this?”

  “Oh, definitely. The name’s Wyatt. Don’t you forget it. W-Y-A-T-T.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  “We’re Taking Derek Leopold to Pound Town,” Vows Brett Parker’s Little Brother

  Grayport Prepares to Get Dirty with Blakemore Friday Night

  I wasn’t too psyched about the “Brett’s Little Brother” part, but overall, since I didn’t yet know about my Pound Town gaffe, I was happy with the headline. I pounced on the paper when it hit our steps, then sprinted up to our attic bedroom so I could read my interview. I was so excited I didn’t notice the Grayport sweatband looped around our outer doorknob. That was Brett’s signal that he wanted privacy.

  I had never in my life seen Brett flustered. But, for the half second as I flung the door open, I saw a brief yet vivid flicker of panic in him. I couldn’t pick out many features of the object in his hand, other than that it was shiny and sharp. I did see where he quickly stashed it, though: under his top bunk, between his mattress and the piece of old plywood that supported it.

  * * *

  It’d been about six years since I last checked under Brett’s mattress. He was in sixth grade at the time, and his class was away on a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, about forty-five minutes south in Boston. Only Brett wasn’t allowed to go. Mom had moved in with our aunt Jackie by then, and Dad refused to sign Brett’s permission slip because he said art was “some wussy bullcrap.” Art was a gateway to becoming soft, he said, which made you a liability to your teammates, who were counting on you to go balls out every play. After Dad’s lecture Brett nodded and said, “Yes, sir,” as always.

  The afternoon of the trip, while Brett worked on agility drills with Dad at the field, I took the opportunity to snoop around his stuff and peek under his mattress. That’s where I found a secret folder brimming with watercolors painted on computer paper that Brett must’ve swiped from the printers at school. They were pretty good, actually. Each one depicted the same scene over and over: a sun rising over the ocean horizon that lies just beyond Grayport Field. The focus was on the sea, which was uncharacteristically calm and bursting with colors that danced on the waves, a mix of oranges and reds and purples all bleeding into a dark blue sea whose horizon seemed to stretch to infinity, or at the very least Boston, where Brett’s class was now touring the Museum of Fine Arts without him.

  I remember being surprised at how much those pictures made my heart hurt. My eyes got a little moist as I stood there holding those watercolors, each one painted so painstakingly, signed so proudly, folded up so carefully, and tucked so shamefully under the mattress. I didn’t allow myself to cry, though. Wussy bullcrap and all that.

  * * *

  An inch of the mystery object was sticking out from beneath Brett’s mattress. Yup, it was definitely metallic and pointy. It looked sharp.

  Brett was only in his boxers. He continued his morning routine as if nothing had happened, slabbing on deodorant and throwing on a pair of old jeans.

  I sat down on my bed and pretended to read the paper. I was scared and I wasn’t sure why.

  “Hey, Brett?” I said after a moment.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wondering…” My voice trailed off as I figured out where to go next. “Well, I was wondering why Dad’s making bacon downstairs.”

  “I think some guy is having breakfast with me and Dad,” Brett said.

  On cue we heard the buzzer go off on our apartment unit. Dad shouted at Brett to get his butt downstairs, so Brett slipped on a shirt and headed for the door. In one fluid movement he pulled it closed while he quietly slipped the Grayport sweatband off the knob and into his pocket.

  Even after pulling it out from the mattress, the mystery object remained a mystery to me. I’d never really seen anything like it. It was a little like a pair of small metal tongs, only instead of the tips being flat and blunt, they were sharp and pointed. The two “legs” could be pulled about six inches apart, and there was a sliding ruler that measured the distance between them. It looked like some sort of medieval torture device. Next to the device was also a small notebook with dozens of tiny numbers in Brett’s handwriting. Weird. I slipped both the mystery contraption and the notebook back under Brett’s mattress and made my way to the stairs. On to the next mystery: the strange man below.

  About halfway down the attic stairs there’s a spot where you can sit down, lean your head against the left wall, and see most of our tiny kitchen table. It’s dark in the stairway, and in my experience nobody notices you if you’re real quiet.

  I watched Dad open our kitchen door and let in a grave-looking man of about fifty. He was wearing crisp pleated pants, black sneakers, and a mesh polo shirt. This is the unofficial uniform of college football recruiters. They used to come by all the time, spinning dreams of scholarships and Heisman Trophies and NFL draft bonuses. But that was before the injury. Now we get this guy, the lone recruiter to come all year. And we had to impress him. Hence the bacon.

  My dad forced a big fake smile and beckoned in the scout. “Sir, I’d like you to meet my son Brett.”

  The recruiter shook Brett’s hand, then took a full step back to scan him from head to toe. Scouts have no hesitation sizing you up right there on the spot, like a farmer inspecting a prized steer for sale.

  “Looking good there, Brett. Looking real good,” the man said. “I can see that the famous Grayport fish diet is getting you nice and lean.”

  He reached into a duffel bag he’d brought with him and pulled out a scale. “Mind if we get the measurements out of the way?”

  The man and my dad watched as Brett unbuckled his belt and jeans and slid them down to his ankles. He slipped off his shirt and moved toward the scale.

  “Socks, too,” mumbled the scout.

  Brett followed orders, then stepped on the scale. The scout recorded the number. My dad craned his neck to see what he was writing. The scout pulled out a tape measure and took Brett’s height, then after rummaging around his duffel for a moment, he pulled out the same strange contraption Brett had hidden under his mattress.

  The scout got down on one knee and with his thumb and index finger pinched together the skin on Brett’s stomach. With the other hand he brought the metal device and clamped the sharp points onto the skin. He turned his head sideways to read the number on the sliding ruler. Brett was stone-faced.

  “Twenty-eight point six body mass index,” he said, getting back to his feet. “Not bad, but generally we want our skill position players to be in the twenty-six range.”

  Up on the stairs, I was feeling funny. Watching Brett get poked and prodded like a piece of meat made me feel bad for him, but I was also annoyed. Almost angry. Clearly, Brett was hiding the body-fat measuring tool from me because he thought it’d make me feel bad. Like my fat self was too sensitive to watch him measure himself every day as he honed his perfect body by fractions of pounds. Who was he to decide that I needed protection from reality?

  At the same time, though, I knew he was probably right. I would be rattled whenever I saw that fat-measurer thing. For me losing 2 percent body fat would be as unnoticeable, weight-wise, as tossing a deck chair off a steamship. I had lost ten pounds from training over the summer, and my body fat percentage was still probably way off the charts. I didn’t need a constant reminder of that. I bet that stupid thing wouldn’t even stretch wide eno
ugh to measure the rolls of my stomach.

  I’d seen enough. I got up from my step, but the mass of my weight creaked the stairs loudly. Everyone downstairs glared up at me.

  “Would you look at this big fella!” the scout exclaimed. “Why don’t you come down here and have some breakfast with us.” He held out a piece of bacon like he was beckoning a zoo animal.

  I tentatively made my way down the stairs and sat at the table with the scout, my dad, and Brett, who was still in his underwear. I took the scout’s bacon.

  “This here is my other son, Wyatt.” My dad awkwardly patted me on the shoulder. “As you can see,” he added, chuckling uneasily, “Wyatt ate all of Brett’s tartar sauce growing up.”

  The scout and my dad laughed, and I did, too, hating myself the whole time.

  “They really are brothers, though,” my dad confirmed, addressing the elephant (literally) in the room.

  “Wyatt trained with me all summer,” Brett interjected. He stared hard into the scout’s eyes.

  “The boys worked their butts off this spring,” my dad said. “Brett got his forty time down from 4.48 to 4.42 seconds. Isn’t that right, son?”

  “That’s right.”

  The scout looked pleased. “Well, we’re monitoring your progress carefully at Boston College, Brett. Show what you had when you were fully healthy your sophomore year, and that you can stay healthy for a whole season”—here he glanced at the scar on Brett’s elbow—“and we’d be thrilled to get you over to BC. You ever been to Boston, Brett?”

  “No, sir,” Brett said dryly. “Only time I ever leave Grayport is to take care of business on away games.”

  “Well, you’ll see the city soon enough,” said the scout. Then, darting his eyes between Brett and my dad, he added in a hushed voice, “And you know, we can make admission assurances for Walter, too, if that would help convince Brett to get on board with us.”