Gut Check

by Eric Kester

  “Just go to bed, Dad.” I tried to sound in control, but I wasn’t. My heart was beating through my chest. My fists were clenched.

  “You think you know what loyalty is,” he went on. “You don’t know the first damn thing. You don’t have our family’s back. You definitely don’t have Brett’s back. Never have. And he knows that.”

  “Jesus, Dad,” Brett said firmly. “Just get out of here. You’re not making sense. Sleep this off.”

  “Suddenly defending Wyatt, eh? That’s not how you were before the Blakemore game when you asked the coaches not to put Wyatt in the game for any reason. You needed a left tackle you could trust. What was it you said to me? That you’d rather have anyone else protecting your blind side? Even that pencil-necked kid Nate?”

  I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. Keep it together, Wyatt. “I’m not going to get lectured on loyalty from a man who can’t even keep his family together.”

  “Your mom left us, Wyatt,” he sneered. “Abandoned us when things got tough. She doesn’t know the first thing about loyalty, just like you.” Dad paused, and I watched his eyes dart down to my clenched fists. A deranged smirk spread across his withered face. “Look at you,” he said softly. “You’re not even loyal to yourself. You want to hit me, don’t you? You want to rip right through me. But you won’t because you’re a scared little boy.”

  “Stop,” I said softly. “Please.”

  “Go ahead, do it.” He took a step closer to me. “Be a man for once and stand up for your sorry ass. Do it. Pop your drunk old man right in the mouth. Be loyal to yourself. Show us you can at least do that.”

  I stood there, seething. Deep within my fists I could feel my nails sharply digging into my palms. The pain felt good.

  Suddenly, Dad grabbed the middle of my shirt and yanked me toward him. He was inches from my face. His bloodshot eyes burned with something hotter than anger. “DO IT!” he shouted, bits of spit flecking my cheeks. “Hit me, goddammit! DO IT!”

  A surge of power radiated from my clenched fists throughout my entire body. I looked at this injured, pathetic old man and knew I could obliterate him. That’s one thing I gained this football season—the knowledge that, in the right circumstance, I could really hurt someone. I’d even done it to Nate, my best friend. I could easily do it to this bastard in front of me now. I breathed my anger in and out, in and out, let it boil into rage.

  I leaned in toward him so our foreheads were almost touching. I stared at him hard—really looked at him.

  “I’m not you,” I finally said. “And I never will be.”

  I released my fists and stepped back.

  Then I glared at Brett, still over by the sink. “Tell me it’s not true,” I demanded.

  “Tell you what’s not true?”

  “That you didn’t want me playing on your line. That you told the coaches.” I bored my glare right into his uneven pupils. They were eerily gray in the moonlight that filtered through the kitchen window. “Brett,” I stated firmly. “Tell me.”

  Finally, after a moment, he opened his mouth, spun toward the sink, and puked into it.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Wyatt, wake up.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Seriously, you need to get up.”

  “No, Nate, I don’t.”

  “But Brett is in the kitchen.”

  “Fine then.”

  I peeled myself off the lumpy couch in Nate’s basement. I’d been crashing there since shit got real in my kitchen two nights before. I’d skipped school on Thursday, and ditched practice, too, which was probably enough to lose my starting spot in the game, which was later tonight. I didn’t give a shit, obviously. I’d basically been existing these past days in a dreamlike state, drifting in and out of sleep.

  When I met Brett upstairs, he tossed me a certified Poncho Pete poncho and told me we were going on a walk. He looked like shit—ashen skin, eyes puffy and red. I’m sure I looked much the same.

  He said there was something he wanted to show me on the beach, so we walked down toward an entry point about a quarter mile from Nate’s house. We hopped over the yellow DO NOT CROSS tape and weaved around the small forest of red tide warning signs pounded into the ground.

  “It reeks,” I said, pulling my poncho up over my nose to deflect the stench of the thousands of fish rotting on the shore.

  “It’s not far,” Brett said. “Come on.”

  He led me westward along the beach in the direction of Grayport Stadium. The sun was supposedly rising behind us, but you wouldn’t have known it from the canopy of darkness brooding overhead. A whopper of a storm was in the forecast for tonight, and already the first rain clouds were pelting us with light drops, like an approaching army that was calibrating its distance with arrows before unleashing the heavy catapults of destruction. Natalie Hyde must’ve been weeping tears of joy—the game tonight would be a monsoon and feature a nice big helping of gritty, blue-collar grit with a side of gritty and muddy trenches.

  I really had no clue how I was feeling about Brett at this point, but I was relieved that walking with him didn’t feel nearly as awkward as I’d imagined. I still felt betrayed by him telling the coaches he didn’t have faith in me. But at the same time, after everything we had gone through the past few days, I felt like I knew him better now than ever before. It was oddly comforting walking with him, carving a path together through the maze of dead fish.

  “Okay, there,” Brett finally said, pointing to the far distance. “On the sand just in front of the stadium wall. You see it?”

  Squinting, I could make out an enormous, dark mass. I was still unsure what it was, though. We walked faster.

  “Holy shit,” I blurted when I finally realized what it was.

  I slowed down and approached the whale carcass cautiously. I don’t mean to insult you by stating the obvious, but it was massive. It lay at the foot of the huge wooden wall that protects Grayport Stadium from the ocean, and at its thickest point the whale reached almost halfway up the towering barricade. It was low tide now, and there was something deeply sad about the way the foamy water again and again stretched up the beach toward the whale, but stopped just short every time. It was like the ocean was desperately reaching out in vain for its old friend.

  “Humpback?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  It was on its back. Long grooves ran like pleats along its massive throat and crusty white barnacles the size of my fist were latched under its lip. Its white fins were the size of a surfboard and scalloped along the inner edges like a bread knife. What struck me most, though, was the whale’s skin: Its surface was a deep slate gray and profoundly smooth, like a glossy stone that had been polished to perfection over thousands of years. It was mesmerizing to look at.

  “Natalie Hyde was real fired up when this washed ashore yesterday,” Brett explained. “She said it was symbolic of Grayport and perfect for filming the little bio piece of me they were putting together. They made me stare at the whale for like twenty minutes with my hands in my pockets while making a face like this—” Brett softened his face into a dramatic look of sullen contemplation. “It was ridiculous. Then for twenty minutes they made me skip stones in the ocean, all pensive and moody.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you at all,” I said sarcastically.

  “Fair point,” Brett said. “They also had me crouch down and run the sand through my fingers like I was a Viking about to sail away from my homeland. They even had me skip stones in the ocean while looking pensive.”

  “You already told me that,” I said.

  “Oh,” Brett said. “Sorry.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like that would refocus his brain. “But it does make you think, though. The whale, I mean.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, so I stayed quiet and kept circling the animal, checking it out.

  “It’s sad seeing it here,” Brett went on. “But it puts things into perspective, you know? Look
at the size of it. We’re like a pebble standing next to it. But then you look out into the ocean, and you realize that the whale is infinitely small in comparison. And realizing that somehow makes its death feel less sad. It makes you feel more at peace with it. The world doesn’t feel as heavy when you realize how many things are holding it up.”

  “You’re still super concussed. Either that or you’ve been eating some of Jeremy’s special mushrooms.”

  Brett smirked briefly, but then his expression turned somber again. “I’m sorry about the other night,” he said.

  I shrugged for some reason. “I mean, I’m not going to stand here and say it was no big deal. Like, I get it. People think I’m soft. Hell, I think I’m soft. But for a while there when we were preparing for the Blakemore game together, it really seemed like you maybe had some faith in me. It made me feel really good, you know? Now I feel like a complete tool knowing it was all in my head.”

  Brett shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out toward the ocean. “I didn’t think you were soft, necessarily. I just wasn’t sure you had the right mentality for the football field. I know it sounds real dickish of me, but I honestly think of it as a compliment. Like it’s one of your good qualities.”

  “Weird way of complimenting, then,” I scoffed.

  “I know. I messed that up. Probably should’ve been up front with you.”

  I tried to envision how that conversation would’ve gone, but it was impossible to imagine Brett and me having an intense, intimate conversation like that. Then again, we were doing that at this very moment, so who knows.

  “A couple of years ago I read this poem,” Brett said. “Can’t remember the whole thing, but the opening line was, ‘It takes strength to be firm, but it takes courage to be gentle.’ It made me think of you. You’re brave as hell because somehow you manage to be gentle in this goddam town, in our messed-up family. I probably would’ve popped Dad right in his stupid mouth the other night. But you held back, and not because you were scared. Imagine if you did fight him. That would’ve really broken us.”

  “I guess,” I said. “But I’m starting to think none of this matters as much as I thought. Our family is broken, probably beyond repair. The sooner I accept that, the sooner I can move on.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Brett shot back. “Like yeah, we’re a weird, totally messed-up, dysfunctional family. Things have not gone how we’ve drawn it up in the playbook. We’re the definition of a broken play. But we’re going to improvise. We’ll figure it out. Trust me on that.”

  I pulled the hood of my poncho over my head. It was raining harder now. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “How much do you really like football?”

  Brett sighed. “It’s complicated. Sometimes I think I don’t love it as much as I used to, which is pretty scary, you know? I see Dad, I see myself…”

  He trailed off before continuing again. “The game costs a lot. It takes from you. But it gives a lot, too. And you can’t easily find its good parts anywhere else. Its rewards are really meaningful, really personal. Or at least they used to be.” Brett ran his hand along the slick gray skin of the whale. “Lately I’ve been wondering who I’m really playing football for.”

  “You talking about Dad?”

  “Sometimes it feels like I’m only playing for Dad, or the college scouts, or the hardcore fans who call in to the shows on Grayport Sports Radio. It’s a weird feeling. Kind of makes me feel empty, or like a robot. An empty robot.”

  Brett patted the whale twice, like a kind of goodbye, then turned and faced the ocean. Rain pelted his poncho, which billowed in and out with each gust of wind. “Every now and then, when we’re in a tough battle and we have to really grind out every yard, I have this moment of incredible clarity, and I remember who I’m playing for.”

  “Yourself?”

  “Yeah, but also my teammates. I know you know the feeling. You look around the huddle, then around at the fans and the championship flags along the wall, and you feel like you’re a part of something that’s bigger than yourself. But at the same time you’re part of a group that’s so close-knit. Those guys are like my brothers, and for a while I thought there was nothing in the world more rewarding than lining up alongside them. But then I got to play with my actual brother.”

  I was glad that Brett and I were facing the ocean and not each other. My eyes were getting moist and I didn’t want him to see.

  “I haven’t reported your concussion yet,” I said.

  “I know. And I’m sorry it’s turned out this way,” he said. “But I don’t have a choice. It’s become bigger than me. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Sometimes I do. But mostly I don’t.”

  “I know I rip on Grayport, but there are good people here. They deserve better than they’ve gotten. You deserve better. This game will change things for everyone.”

  “I want there to be another way.” My voice was shaking. I could barely hold it together.

  “There’s not,” he said, now looking at the ground. “And that’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it. It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  Brett was quiet a very long time. “Yes.”

  We stood looking at the ocean awhile, its bubbling red foam continuously stretching up the beach, reaching for our muddy boots before retreating back to where it came. “I have to go,” Brett finally said.

  “I’m going to stay here awhile.”

  “Okay, sure.” Brett patted me once on the shoulder. “I want to tell you something now. In case tonight…”

  His voice faded. I forced myself to look him in the eyes, but his darted away.

  “For the longest time,” he started, looking into the horizon now, “I could barely remember the day Mom and Dad brought you home to live with us. But somehow the image of you being carried into the kitchen has gotten clearer as I’ve gotten older.” He paused, thinking through his next words. “Even with my head like this, the image still gets sharper. And so does my feeling that that day was the best thing ever to happen to me. I want you to know that.”

  I bit my lip to fight off the moisture swelling in my eyes.

  “Tell me you know that, Wyatt.”

  “I do.”

  With that, Brett turned and started walking back down the beach.

  “Brett!” I called out suddenly. “Don’t do it. Don’t play. Please!”

  He spun around and looked at me fiercely. “Jesus, Wyatt!” he shouted back, his voice wobbling over the low rumble of rain and waves. “Can you just be a man? Stop crying.” Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I’m serious—stop!”

  But I couldn’t, and neither could he. He turned around again and kept walking. Behind him, each wave erased his boot prints from the sand.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Natalie Hyde’s bright white fur coat glowed like a lighthouse in the raging storm. But she was in game mode and, microphone in hand, she stomped up and down the sideline as an intern held an umbrella over her head. A second intern held another umbrella at an angle to block the sideways rain from pelting her.

  The same torrential rain pattered on my helmet so loudly I could barely hear Brett as he counted out calisthenics to our team. I sat in a puddle on the ten-yard line and hoped the ESPN cameras wouldn’t zoom in on me giving the ol’ groin a good stretch. Somewhere through the monsoon on the other half of the field Derek Leopold was warming up and, probably, performing his pregame blood sacrifice to his demon lord in the underworld. I could hear waves smash relentlessly against the stadium wall behind me, thumping the old wood over and over. I could even feel the vibrations in the ground, like a giant was stomping his feet somewhere just out of sight.

  If I hadn’t been so distracted with everything going on, I would have noticed that something fishy was going down and that a particular sound was conspicuously absent: the satisfying rip and pop of the championship flags streaming i
n the wind above the wall.

  But it didn’t cross my mind. I was too busy watching the people of Grayport file into the stadium. The ponchos they were all wearing seemed almost quaint; with the rain coming down in sheets, wearing a poncho was the equivalent of putting on a bulletproof vest to take a bazooka to the chest. They really are crazy sons of bitches.

  As I stretched, I thought about that poem Brett mentioned: It takes strength to be firm, but it takes courage to be gentle. I realized that Brett was right: I didn’t have the right mentality to be a great football player. Being gentle was so counter to what Grayport seemed to stand for, yet after years of being immersed in its tough-guy culture, I turned out this way. After Mom left, the town raised me more than anyone else, so clearly there were gentle elements of the town that I absorbed. I was a part of Grayport, and Grayport was a part of me.

  That’s when it hit me: Maybe I was basing my decision not to report Brett’s concussion because of a false assumption about the town. Like, maybe I was majorly underestimating Grayport’s level of empathy. Yes, there’d be people who would resent me for turning in Brett, and yes, they’d probably open a Wyatt dart-throwing booth in the stadium concourse. But maybe some people would agree with my decision, or at least understand my inner conflict. For every Coach Crooks, there were good people like Nate and Haley and Murray Miller. There were people who read Charlotte’s Web to their child before bed. There were football players who kept watercolors under their mattress. Dudes who eagerly shared their Goldfish. People who bought winter hats from Ms. Moss even though they knew the hats weren’t warm. Cats who loved Mozart.

  The wind intensified, and the thunderous crashing of waves against the end zone wall grew louder. But the crowd kept filing in as they always had and they always would.