Damage

by A. M. Jenkins

  You don’t talk to anybody; you perform a solitary of getting dressed, tucking pads into pockets snapping them into place as if you’re building the wide receiver in the history of the world, and doing from scratch. The routine is all that’s left to glue you this game. The Pride of the Panthers has obligations fulfill; everyone’s counting on that guy from the newspaper clipping.

  The Panthers are up 14–13 with 49 seconds remaining. You personally pull in a first down at the nine, which gives the team three more shots at glory before the will have to be called to put the icing on the cake.

  On first-and-goal, Cox is supposed to hand off Stargill. You take off from the line. Wheaton’s corner-back goes with you, like he’s supposed to. You cut inside, and when you glance back to check the progress of the play, Stargill’s slipped or tripped or something—he’s one knee in the backfield, just getting up—the play is busted and Cox is looking for an open receiver. As arms wrap him up, Cox’s head swivels back and forth; he’s searching, for someone—for anyone.

  You’ve already slowed, yelled to him, and as he goes down his eyes click on you, and then his pass—more of toss, really—is lofting your way.

  At that moment you feel Wheaton’s cornerback breathing down your neck—but your hands are open and the ball is sailing toward you and it’s going to hit you right on the numbers. You’re ready, ready to run.

  Too ready.

  You turn, trying to tuck in the ball a split second soon, and somehow it pops off your hands. It seems hover for a second, wobbling on your fingertips.

  You’re right on the goal line; this should be a deal. But Wheaton’s cornerback gets a hand up between you and that wobbling ball.

  And that’s all it takes—he’s off, cradling the football like it’s a baby.

  Blame comes down in one loud groan from the crowd. You’re in what feels like a nightmare of slow motion; an all-out lunge at his back turns into a grab his legs, which turns out to be a clutch at the air where his ankle used to be. And you’re left behind, face down on the turf while Wheaton’s cornerback takes the ball back almost to the Parkersville twenty before somebody manages to drive him out of bounds.

  Three downs later, with just eighteen seconds left the clock, their kicker clears a field goal. The game ends at 16–14, Wheaton.

  This loss is a personal gift from you.

  Some mistakes you have a choice about. You can ease out from under them by apologizing—or changing your ways. Or just deciding not to think about them anymore.

  But certain kinds of mistakes are carved in stone. matter what you do, no matter whether you think about them or not.

  Back at the field house after the game, you shower and change and go out to meet Heather. You stand on the concrete square just outside the field house door, hands jammed in your pockets, looking around the parking lot for her.

  She’s not there.

  Now that you think about it, she might have something about going somewhere this weekend. you wish you had at least made the effort to listen, when she was doing all that talking last night.

  You wait awhile longer, just in case, watching parking lot clear out, and when you have no reason wait anymore, you step onto the asphalt alone.

  At home, you walk into your room and that guy is still clinging to the bulletin board as if nothing’s happened. Grinning his blank grin.

  You pull out the tack that holds him to the cork take the clipping into the bathroom, where you tear into tiny pieces. You flush them and watch the little circle before they disappear.

  It’s still dark outside when you open your eyes. Becky’s not up yet, or Mom. It’s awfully quiet in the house, without all those bustling noises you usually hear at the of your sleep.

  You look at the clock: four-thirty. It’s Sunday morning.

  The alarm is set for eight. Three and a half more hours.

  You don’t want to go to church today. It feels strange to admit that—you don’t want to sit with bowed head while all those dreary words rain guilt on you. You’ve stepped out into empty space this weekend; you’ve been hanging in that one endless moment before you fall, and you cannot take on even one more syllable of weight.

  So after a long while, you reach over to turn off the alarm. As of 4:53 A.M. you are officially not going to church today, no matter what anybody says.

  The only thing in this world that seems even halfway solid is Heather, and the only thing that interests you the slightest is hearing her voice.

  Around midmorning, while Mom and Becky are gone, you try to call.

  Mrs. Mackenzie answers. “Austin, is that you? Hi, honey. No, she’s spending the weekend in Fort Worth and won’t be back till tonight. You know Lacy Matthews, don’t you?” She adds a bunch of stuff explaining the hows and whys of Heather being in Fort Worth, but none of it makes sense till she adds, “She’ll be back tonight, though. I’ll tell her to give you a call if it’s not too late. How’s that?”

  “Fine,” you tell her. Although it’s not, really.

  All you can do after that is go back to bed, pull pillow over your head, and wait for the phone to ring.

  Noises work their way into what’s left of your sleep; clanks and chings and the sound of a running tap.

  Before your eyes even open, the burden descends: Monday, and Heather never called. You’ve pretty been in bed for the last twenty-four hours. You told Mom you didn’t feel well, which was about as close as you come to describing the way you really do feel.

  The sounds keep on incessantly; dishes and silverware and the splash of water—until they finally add up and you remember. When the dishwasher broke a couple of days ago Mom asked you to please be the official dishwasher till she could get the real one fixed.

  Only you kept forgetting. Then all day yesterday, you didn’t so much as lift a finger. And now Mom might be late for work.

  So you force yourself to get up. When you walk into the kitchen, Mom’s standing at the sink, an apron over her work clothes. She glances over her shoulder when she hears you but turns back to the sink and doesn’t say anything.

  That’s Mom; she could have nagged you or left a note, but she just let the dishes pile up, assuming you’d eventually do as you promised—until it got to where she could barely get to the faucet to fill a pot of water for coffee.

  Now she stands here with her back to you, washing the dishes that you should have already taken care of.

  You head for the sink, hold out your hand for scrubber. “I’ll do that.”

  “No, I will. I want to make sure it gets done.”

  “Come on, Mom. I’ll do it.”

  “I’ve already gotten started.” She keeps washing.

  Okay, you’ll dry for her, then. You’re better at it than she is, anyway. She just sort of swipes at them, then them in the cabinets.

  You open the drawer for a dish towel. “Sorry forgot,” you tell her, picking up a glass and getting to work.

  Mom gives one last extra-hard scrub to the pan she’s working on and then relents. “It’s all right. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better today.” She shakes her head. “Hard to believe you used to beg me to let you wash dishes.”

  “That was years ago, Mom. Maybe first grade.”

  “That long?” Mom frowns, sets the pan on the drainboard. She pauses, watching the way you dry the inside the glass; since your hands are too big to fit, you have wad the towel up and shove it down inside. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is that seven-pound, six-ounce boy I gave birth to is already taller than I am.” She smiles. “You were always a good little dryer. You’d standing there biting your lip, working so hard. Always took things like that so seriously, for such a little kid.”

  You set the glass to the side and pick up a Brass-bottomed pan, thinking how strange it is to hear her talk like this. Mom’s never been one for reminiscing. Every other family you know has photo albums; your mom’s never even bought a camera.

  So hearing this sort of thing is like salve on a raw wound.
“That’s the first time in a long time I’ve heard you say anything about when I was little,” you tell “Or Becky, either. You don’t talk about it much.”

  Mom starts scrubbing again. “No, I guess I don’t They weren’t great times. Your father getting sick all, and then he was gone. And me with a toddler and newborn, and the horses weren’t bringing in any money. Lord, it broke my heart to sell my horses.” She sighs. “Sometimes you can’t look back if you want to keep moving forward. I had to keep moving forward, Austin. Still do.”

  “But you remember things about me and Becky.”

  “Of course. Didn’t I just say you were a good dryer?”

  You give the brass-bottomed pan a final polish pick up a wet saucepan. “What other things do remember?”

  “Well. Let’s see. You were my helper. I never had to worry about you. Becky was the one I had to keep an eye on. Like the time she cut her own hair with the nail scissors.”

  “I remember that. It looked like she went after it with a weed eater.”

  “I always hid the nail scissors after that. But you were a different story.” Mom’s smiling to herself again. “Do you remember the time you decided you were going to help me by folding the laundry?”

  You shake your head no, put down the saucepan, pick up a large glass bowl, wiping it carefully.

  “I guess you were about three. It was one of those bad, busy times; I was pregnant with Becky and your dad was in the hospital. Nothing was getting done around the house; the whole place was a disaster. And there was a big old basket of clean clothes in the utility room that needed to be ironed. But you didn’t know it still had to be ironed; you thought you’d just up and take care of it yourself. course, you were just a little guy, littler than the clothes you were trying to fold. So I found you sitting back there in the middle of this big old stack of clothes, wrestling with one of my blouses, frustrated as all get-out. You weren’t making a sound, just working away with little bitty tears rolling down your cheeks. I put the blouse my drawer all wrinkled in a wad,” she adds, her smile twisting, “’cause I couldn’t stand to tell you it wasn’t right. You’ve always been a good kid, Austin. I guess I don’t tell you that often enough.”

  The bowl is dry. You set it down, start in on a skillet.

  “Time moves so fast,” she says quietly. “You blink and suddenly your kids are almost grown up.” She sighs and starts washing again.

  She’s on the last pan. It’s quiet in the kitchen now, except for Mom’s swishing and scrubbing.

  You want to hang on to this moment. Just a longer, anyway. “I remember how Dad used to let shave,” you tell her.

  She gives you a funny look. “Shave?”

  “I mean, like, play shaving. You know, how Dad used to set me on the counter while he shaved? He used to shaving cream on my face and let me shave with a razor.”

  “I don’t think you ever had a toy razor.”

  “I did. I remember it. It must have gotten lost. I even remember shaving in the bathtub, with bubbles from bubble bath—only I had to use a comb turned around backward, for the razor. I remember it wasn’t the same when Dad helped me.”

  “I really don’t think it was Daddy. He was pretty sick, hon. He didn’t even have any hair because of the chemo, and by the time they stopped that, he couldn’t shave himself, much less you.” She rinses the pan. “I’ll bet it was Curtis’s dad you remember. You spent a lot of time over there when Daddy was in the hospital.”

  It was Daddy, you think. You realize you’ve been drying the same skillet for a while now. It’s bone dry.

  “Are you still using that fancy razor of his?” Mom asks.

  You nod, and set the skillet down.

  “Better than gathering dust in a cabinet. I’m glad you found it and brought it out. This may sound silly,” she adds, “but it makes me feel like you’ll get to make good use of all the chances he never had.” She glances at you. “You’ve got circles under your eyes. You sure you feel up to school today?” She takes the towel out of your hand. can finish this. You don’t have to be up for another hour or so—why don’t you go back to bed, see if you can get bit more sleep?”

  You don’t need more sleep. No, you feel fine. And you’re not going back to bed. Instead, you head straight for the bathroom. Lock the door behind you.

  It was not Mr. Hightower. It was your father.

  Run the hot water while you take off your T-shirt. Open the cabinet and take out the shaving gel, the razor. Pull the hand towel off the rack and lay it neatly beside the sink. Wait for the water to get hot.

  Your crystal-clear memory is not cheap. Or washed out. Or somebody else’s.

  After a few minutes you check the water with one finger. It’s ready. You wipe your finger on the hand towel and fill the sink. When it’s about to run over, you shut faucet off, and dive into the ritual of shaving.

  Yep. You’ve always liked being the unfrayed end of tradition that’s been passed from father to son all down the generations. Starting with a straight-edged razor a leather strap.

  You’re turning your head this way and that, measuring the path of metal over skin. The razor feels light, like your dad’s hand swiping the foam onto your cheeks. your mind, you’re sitting on the counter, feet dangling until your dad lifts you down, and your feet landing solid on the blue tile floor. You remember that blue tile, cool under your bare feet.

  Blue tile.

  But the floor under your feet is white.

  The truth wrings you out slowly, like a sponge.

  This, the only bathroom in your house, is white—white tile, white paint, white everything. It always has been.

  The Hightowers’ bathroom has blue tile on the floor, reaching halfway up the wall to cream-and-blue patterned wallpaper. The wallpaper’s changed over the years, but the tile has been blue ever since you can remember.

  And you used to be this pitiful, hopeful kid hanging around the Hightowers’ house, trying to soak up any father-son atmosphere left over from Curtis and his dad.

  Don’t look at the mirror anymore. That guy saws you, he’s going to cut you completely loose.

  Be a machine. Clean off the razor. Place it back in its box. Wipe any traces of foam from your cheeks and neck.

  Standing there holding the towel, you notice how the tendons are bunched lines along your forearm; how the blood rushes through the veins in your wrist. You can almost hear it, whispering along the blue-walled tunnels.

  No.

  Put one foot in front of the other, all the way to the phone. Take it back into the bathroom, where you are insulated from the rest of the household, where the razor is still sitting there in its box by the sink.

  Your fingers are hitting the buttons on the phone, in the correct order, all on their own. You don’t even need to look at the numbers. When Heather answers sleepily, you speak almost in a whisper, because these words are for no one but Heather. “Let’s ditch school today,” you tell her. “Let’s just take the day off and go somewhere.”

  “Austin?” She sounds groggy.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s…five till six. God. What are you asking me?”

  “To let me pick you up so we can—”

  “Is something wrong?”

  Silence. It’s a very simple question.

  “Hello?” She sounds irritated. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You called and woke me up. Is something wrong?”

  Did you ever have this feeling like you’re not sad or thing, but like something’s squeezing the back of your eyes? “No,” you hear yourself tell her. “Nothing’s wrong. I missed you this weekend.”

  “God. Why is it you early risers always assume everybody else is up, just because you are? It’s not even light out.” She sighs, and you hear the rustle of bedclothes. Okay, let me get this straight. You called me at five till six to ask me not to go to school today just be
cause you missed me? I mean, I’m glad you missed me, but couldn’t it wait?”

  The wooden box sits there, unmoving. The lid is shut so you can’t see the razor, but you know it’s there. metal, that’s all. Just metal. A tool. Cold when left in it box, warm when it’s been held awhile.

  There’s no hurry. You can hang on till you see her can’t you? All you have to do is nothing, until you can Heather and dig even just one finger back into solid ground.

  Deep breath. “Yeah,” you tell her. “It can wait.”

  “Great. I’m touched, I really am, but I can’t ditch school for you. Not today. You know my schedule, right? So you can catch me between classes. And I’ll meet you after practice. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” you tell her again. What else can you say?

  After hanging up, you don’t put the box back in the cabinet, but leave it by the sink. Don’t take a shower, either, just go to your room to throw on some clothes.

  When you leave, the razor is still there in its place, waiting to see what’s going to happen when you come home.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  You see Heather for a brief moment between classes try to walk with her, but her friends are there and she’s laughing and gossiping with them, pulling you down hall beside her, with one hand latched onto your arm. not what you need from her; whatever it is that you need will have to wait till afternoon.

  The day inches by.

  After school, when you’re heading across the parking lot to the field house, football is just a long, dark that you can’t escape.

  When you walk into the field house, Coach isn’t there. There’s a note on the marker board, written broad, square black letters:

  SUIT UP AND GO TO THE FIELD.

  And, below that:

  FULL PADS.

  On the field, Coach is standing on the grass alone, apart from the gathering players. He’s got both hands in his jacket pockets and he’s staring toward the scarred goalpost as he lets one of the assistants put the team through warm-ups.

  He doesn’t acknowledge you when you walk past. When warm-ups are over and he finally turns around, he does just what you expected. He gives you one glance then spits in the dirt—Coach doesn’t like having a hardened ball-bobbler on his team—and tells the other guys to get in a circle. He tells you to go stand in the middle. Just like you knew he would.