You pull on your helmet and head into the middle all those eyes.
Coach stands a few feet outside the circle, hands in his pockets. “I got some news for you boys,” he announces. “This is football. And in football, you’re going to get hit. Some of y’all don’t seem to be able to get that idea into your heads.”
When he takes his hands out of his pockets, there’s something in them. It’s a long torn strip of towel. “I got variation that’s going to do you some good, Reid,” he says. “This works wonders for receivers. Take your helmet off for a second.”
You obey, and he walks toward you with that long cloth. “Anybody on this team wants to listen for footsteps—that’s all they’re gonna do, is listen.”
He uses the piece of towel for a blindfold. The thing you see before he ties it on is Curtis looking like smells something bad, and then the thing is on so that the terry cloth bends your eyelashes.
All the things you do wrong, all the moments—and still everybody thought you were the Pride of the Panthers. It’s only right that you should the one to get pounded. It should have been you all along.
You fumble your helmet back into place and stand, waiting. You hear how all the other guys are dead quiet, hear how birds are squawking in a tree across the track. You can hear your heart beating thinly inside your chest.
And then something else—a faint snapping sound, followed by a hollow thud on the grass near your feet.
“Hightower?” That’s Coach.
But you don’t hear Curtis answer.
“Hightower,” Coach grunts, a little louder.
No sound from Curtis.
And then you hear Coach say grimly, “Whatever. Let’s get to work.”
He blows the whistle.
You hear pads creak; you even think you can cleats gripping grass, in the moment before something smashes into you and then the ground slams up to crush what’s left of your breath from your lungs.
Suck more air in. Struggle to your feet.
The whistle blows again.
Coach must be taking it easy since you can’t see. It’s the first time all season he hasn’t called them on two at time. And he gives you enough time to get up, between.
Eventually you’re lying there and no more whistles sound and you hear Coach say, “All right. Looks like could use some sled practice. Get moving, ladies.”
Your tailbone is hurting, and the back of your skull where it meets your backbone. But you get up, and, like Curtis, you don’t complain.
When you remove your helmet and reach up fumble at the knotted towel, Coach’s fingers are there, untying it for you. “You’re a good player, son,” he’s saying quietly. “Don’t let your imagination keep you from being a great one.”
When the knot comes loose and the blindfold disappears back into Coach’s pocket, you immediately look around for Curtis.
He’s not there. Not heading out toward the sleds with everybody else. Not running laps, like he should be Coach is mad at him. He’s not anywhere that you can see.
“Go get some water and hightail it back out here.” Coach’s face is set in tired lines as he turns away. “Dobie,” hear him say. “Get that thing out of my sight.”
That’s when you see the lone empty helmet lying the grass.
Dobie lopes over to it. Coach is already bellowing somebody else. “Baker!” he calls. “This ain’t bumper cars—wrap ’em up, you hear?”
Dobie bends, loops his long fingers through Curtis’s face mask. You watch as he slowly takes the helmet the field.
Nobody you know has ever just walked out of football practice. Failed to show up, yes. Pretended to be sick, Back in ninth grade, Dobie even went to the counselor and got his schedule changed to regular PE. But nobody’s ever just walked out, right in the middle of a drill.
Leave it to Curtis to decide he didn’t like the view from this particular tunnel.
Heather shows up right before the end. The sight of her doesn’t lift you up the way you thought it would.
You wave at her, anyway, and try to smile.
Later, when you come out of the field house clean and dressed in street clothes, Curtis’s car is nowhere to seen. Dobie stands on the sidewalk, shading his eyes, looking around the parking lot.
Poor forgotten Dobie. Stranded here because of you and Curtis. “Need a ride home?” you ask.
Dobie peers at your pickup. Heather’s visible inside it; she’s probably running down the battery by listening the radio. “You sure it’s okay?”
“It’s okay.”
“Well. All right. ’Preciate it, Austin.”
The two of you walk side by side across the parking lot. But when you’re about to reach the cab, Dobie heads toward the bed of the truck.
Good old Dobie.
“Come on up front, Dobe. Heather can sit in middle.”
“It’s okay. I’ll ride in the back.”
“There’s plenty of room.”
Dobie hesitates again, with a glance at the window—at Heather’s blond head. It’s the same look has when he passes the show window of the local dealership, of longing being quickly nipped in the bud. “I’ll be fine back here,” he says with dignity, and puts booted foot on the trailer hitch to hoist himself up.
“We’re giving Dobie a ride home,” you tell Heather as you slide in, and she stares at you for a moment before looking quickly over her shoulder.
“Oh,” she says. “For a moment I thought you’d meant I was going to have to be all squished up next him. The gods of dating are kind, after all.”
“He’s a nice guy,” you tell her.
“Maybe so, but I’d rather walk through Kmart in sponge rollers than have to rub against him around every corner.” She glances at Dobie in the rearview mirror, then gives you a smile. “This way, he can dip tobacco if he wants, and I can be alone with you, and we’re all happy. You are going to take him home first, aren’t you?”
That means a trip out 171 and back, but you nod anyway.
You let Dobie off at the road in front of his house like you always have. You don’t get to say good-bye because he doesn’t come up to the window—he never does—thumps on the fender like he’s dismissing a horse with pat on the flank. Then he goes to check the mailbox before heading up the dirt driveway to his family’s small frame house.
All the way back to her house Heather’s talking you, fooling with the radio. She doesn’t say a word about your phone call this morning. When you pull up in front of her house you don’t get out right away. She scoots closer and nestles against you, talking on and on about how in sixth period Mrs. Henderson hates her and is desperate for a chance to flunk her.
All the while she’s talking, she’s also playing with your right hand, testing its size against hers, tracing the outlines of your fingers.
So finally you give your full attention to Heather, bright and beautiful and curled up against you, and understand that in order to make this connection you going to have to put yourself on the line.
“I wasn’t even enough to make my own father want stick around,” she said. You’ve got the missing pieces to puzzle—you can start by pointing out that she’s been look at her dad with tunnel vision. That she doesn’t see the whole picture. That she can’t take other people’s suicides personally. And if she asks how you know, well…
“I’ve been thinking,” you begin. Only when she stops talking do you realize you interrupted her, but now you’ve got the momentum and you’re not going to stop “About your father,” you add.
You can’t tell any reaction. She’s fingering the design on your class ring.
“I’ve been thinking,” you repeat carefully, “that your mom could be wrong about that manipulation stuff. Because it could be that he just didn’t want to lie there for a long time without being found. Maybe that’s why he did it right when your mom was pulling up. So it might not have had anything to do with revenge.”
Heather is silent, leaning against you. “I really don’t wan
t to talk about this,” she finally says.
“I know. But just listen for a second. You said he was bitter. I was thinking that maybe he just didn’t see any point in being alive anymore.”
“No point.” Her voice is muffled against your shirt. “Just me.”
“He probably felt pretty low, pretty unimportant. Like everybody would get over it real quick.”
Heather sits up and moves away a little. “Is this why you woke me up this morning? Well, you can just drop it. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. He was selfish,” she adds, her mouth a tight line. “And a liar.”
“A liar? What did he lie about?”
“Everything. Calling me Pumpkin. The hugs. The kisses. Everything.”
“I don’t think he was lying. I think he cared about you a lot. And selfish—well, maybe he was. But maybe he couldn’t help it. It could be that he didn’t really want to die, he just wanted to stop feeling bad. But he couldn’t any other way—”
“Why are you even bringing this up? You don’t know anything about it. You have no clue.”
No clue? Just a razor waiting for you at home.
“But I do,” you tell her. “Kind of.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maybe not in some ways, but there’s still some things I see that—”
“Oh, of course you see. You were there, right?”
“No, but—”
“I was. I was there. Hello?—and you weren’t!”
“But—”
“It wasn’t my mom who found him, Austin.”
It takes a moment for her words to sink in, for you catch her meaning. “Oh,” you hear yourself say, and for moment you sound like that guy from the mirror, squeezed.
“You have no clue,” Heather says again, through gritted teeth. “Well, here’s a clue. Here’s several clues. He lying there in his armchair, all laid back with the footrest out. There was this smell, like—when people die,” says, enunciating each word carefully. “Austin, w people die, they lose control of everything. Like, their bowels? And the blood—I’ll bet you didn’t even know blood has a smell. Well it does, when there’s a lot of it. A thick, heavy smell. It was all over everything—the chair, the floor, the wall. And clumps of…his head. My father’s head. So don’t even think you know anything about it.”
In a flash the world shifts and you see yourself from some weird, outside angle where dying is not some healing, endless sleep; where it is not the relief you’ve always thought it would be—like opening a spillway eases the pressure off a dam.
It is an action that will fly completely out of your control.
It is a man sprawled in his own shit and blood.
Here in the truck, it’s very quiet. Heather clears her throat and looks away; you realize you’ve been staring at her. Now you see how pale she is.
“You’re right, I don’t know anything about that,” you tell her quietly. “But I think I know something about why he did it. And—I think I can help you see that it’s not what you think. That it wasn’t anything against you. Because…”
You can feel your left hand tightening, squeezing the steering wheel, trying to crush it into dust. “Because know how he felt. Your dad. Sort of. Because, I guess tend to, you know, sometimes…feel the same way.”
Heather’s voice is high, pinched. “What do you mean? Feel what way?”
“Down, I guess. I don’t know the best word for Maybe…depressed. Like…not being…”
Your heart’s thumping so loud, she must be able hear it.
“Sometimes I want to kill myself.”
There it is. Out on the table. The steering wheel still there, uncrushed, and your left hand is still on it, you can still feel it.
And you can feel Heather staring at you.
“So,” you say carefully, giving her silence a light prod. “I guess you think I’m a little weird, huh?”
She doesn’t answer. You sneak a glance at her; she looks a little shocked. And this time you know the exact missed moment, right as it happens. It happens when says: “Don’t touch me.”
Sure enough, she’s right—your hand was reaching toward hers. You didn’t even know it. You pull it back the seat by your side.
“And don’t look at me like you expect something. Don’t act like you’re surprised at me. You are the one who is not normal.”
She looks away from you and starts collecting her stuff to leave.
“I can’t believe this,” you hear her muttering as bends over to feel for her purse and books. “It’s like, attract suicidal people?” She gets her hands on her books, which have spread out on the floorboard, and starts piling them back into one stack. “Or did you start out regular and something about me makes you want to blow your brains out?” She sits up, not looking at you as she pulls her books into her lap, hauls her purse up by the tangled strap. “I am not going to wallow around in your mental problems.” Her eyes are straight ahead, but her hand trembles when she pulls her purse strap up onto her shoulder.
She opens the door and slides out—but instead shutting the door, she stops. She bends to look right into your face. She’s got one last grenade to lob.
“Let me make this clean and clear. Don’t even think you’re going to walk me to the door. And don’t try to call me later. Don’t try to call me ever. You are sick, and this is over. O-V-E-R.”
She flings the words at you, looking at you from wide, frightened doll’s eyes. Then, slam!—she’s scurrying the sidewalk.
You watch her through the window. At first she hurries as if something’s chasing her, but by the time she gets to the porch steps her back is straight, her shoulders squared. In that instant you want to run after her, you want to crawl after a girl who just made a major point not wanting you.
You keep both hands at your sides. Your head turns, your eyes follow her up onto the porch—but otherwise you don’t move. You do not open your mouth. You just sit there and watch her leave.
She disappears inside; the front door shuts.
It’s o-v-e-r.
You look at the window that is Heather’s bedroom The blinds are closed, but in a moment you see them give a little shudder—you can almost see her, stalking into her room, slamming the door so hard it shakes the blinds. can almost see her at this moment, checking hers in the mirror. Calming herself down by taking out brush, maybe fluffing her hair. Thinking she doesn’t look so bad, for someone who just got so freaked out. Telling herself there’s nothing in that mirror that looks wounded or damaged.
Heather Mackenzie is completely capable of keeping everything shining and perfect around her. And she doesn’t need you.
You start the engine. Put the truck in gear and drive away from her house.
The next thing you know, you’re passing through the middle of town. Already? You don’t remember getting here; time must have stopped keeping pace somehow. It’ like driving through a doll’s town, with little wooden people walking on the streets—this town seems to have been deserted of real people years ago. All the cars moving like robots, the changing of lights from red to green to yellow—it all seems hollow, like a not very good copy of real life.
It isn’t until you’re forced to stop for a red light 171 that you finally see another real live human being. An old guy, wrinkled and windblown in a thin jacket. He’s on the median, selling Tyler roses.
You’ve got some money in your pocket. You could buy flowers, drive back. Surprise Heather with some roses.
You could act like there’s nothing wrong with you at all. Act like there’s nothing wrong with her, either. See if you can get back on the same road the two of you were on before this weekend.
The old guy’s got a thin bundle in his hand; in the unreal glow of the dying daylight you see red roses wrapped in clear cellophane. You could pay him a few bucks, take the roses and lay them carefully on the seat beside you so they wouldn’t get bent. You could make a U-turn, nice and easy so the roses wouldn’t slide off onto the floorboard. Y
ou could drive slow and careful back to Heather’s house and try to make everything all right.
You take another look at the roses. They’re just buds, actually. Tied up with a cheap, shiny ribbon already unraveled a little on one end.
Heather wouldn’t like flowers from some guy off the street. She’s probably used to florist flowers, done up in a vase with a card, delivered by a van with lettering on the side.
Of course, she might not be able to tell where they came from.
But you have a feeling that she would.
The light is already green. There’s nobody behind you telling you to move on. Or even to turn back.
You ease off on the clutch at the same moment slowly begin to press the accelerator. And in a moment you’re heading down the highway toward home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When you finally get home, you pull up the gravel driveway past the house, and head around to the back. You park in your usual spot by the back porch and cut the engine.
There is only one thing left.
You sit perfectly still and you shut your eyes, and listen to yourself breathe.
The truck seat is firm under you. The air is cool; hugs your shirt to your skin. It’s peaceful in here. It’s like being on the bottom of a pool, in the stillness and the silence, while up above you the ripples are still spreading.
In the quiet a sound begins; a sound that you can’t identify; rhythmic, muffled through the window.
You open the door, and the noise gets louder. It is coming from across the front yard. From the Hightowers’ house? It’s harsher now, regular—almost a sound.
It must be Curtis. Nobody else would be over there this time of day.
Curtis will be pretty torn up when he finds out you’re gone. Maybe you ought to go over, give him one last moment. A good-bye, whether he knows it or not. Something, because you owe him, for what you’re about to do.
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