Mercy Rule

by Tom Leveen

  “Yeah. Okay. I just, I don’t want him to be all, you know.”

  She tilts her head. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She kisses me again, but just a bit, then shivers. “When’s the last game of the season?”

  We both laugh, and she leans her body into mine. I put an arm around her shoulders, and she lets me.

  All things considered? It’s the best party I’ve ever been to.

  BRADY

  Close to three thirty in the morning by the time I get Brianna Montaro into Martin’s bedroom.

  Saturday night. Party at Martin’s house. Planned it after we beat the Titans couple weeks ago. Knew Martin’s parents would be out of town. But then the Dons game happened.

  They mercy ruled us. Me.

  Biggest party so far this year. Everyone knew about it. Coach probably even knows about it. Place is packed. But everybody’s pissed. Can feel it underneath the music.

  Martin paid a few freshmen to stand guard up and down the block to call in if the cops show up. Early warning system. Paid a JV basketball kid to be in charge of keys and Ubers. Nobody’s driving drunk. Probably a lot of us will sleep here, anyway. Martin thought of everything. Except how to win last night’s game.

  I can barely move. Lost track of beers hours ago. Brianna’s sexy look has fallen apart. Some kind of hair tie thing is halfway down what used to be a ponytail. Her eyes are half-closed. Maybe it just looks that way because mine are, too.

  We fall onto Martin’s mattress. Brianna says something. I say something back. I don’t think either one of us knows what.

  Try to get my fingers under her shirt. They feel twice as big as normal. Can’t make them work. She reaches down and grabs the edge. Tries pulling up. No luck.

  This isn’t how I imagined things going.

  “Waitwaitwait!” Brianna shouts suddenly. Gets up off the bed.

  “Wha?” Can’t figure what I did wrong.

  “I gotta go home,” Brianna says. “I gotta paper.”

  “Paper?” I sound stupid. Maybe I am.

  “For history, I gotta paper I gotta do, I only got a ninety-one in there …”

  She’s looking around the room for something. Don’t know what.

  “School?” I say. “Babe, come on, come here.”

  Brianna stops looking around. Stares at me.

  “I have to win,” she says.

  “Naw, come on, you need to relax,” I say. Try to smile. “Bree, you’ll be fine. I wish I was half as smart as you.”

  “Smart doesn’t matter if I don’t ace the class!”

  Yells it. Makes me wince. I force myself to sit up. It’s not easy.

  “Come on, what’s up with you?”

  “Have you not heard of my brother and sister?” Brianna shouts. I don’t think she’s that drunk after all. “He was valedictorian and went to Swarthmore, my sister was salutatorian and goes to Brown—”

  “I don’t care about report cards right now.”

  Brianna keeps going. She’s not listening at all. “I have to do better, and it’s got to be this year because next year barely matters—”

  I reach for her. She pulls away. Makes me mad. But then I’m facedown in Martin’s pillow and I don’t know what happens to Brianna after that.

  I just know that I lost.

  Everything.

  CADENCE

  Friday after school, Danny asks me to meet him at a church that night. Not to actually go to a service or anything, just to meet him there. It’s kind of suspicious, but he won’t tell me what it is we’re going to do.

  So of course I go. Curiosity and all that. I hope it doesn’t make God mad. I take a trolley to the church, a big Baptist place with a square tower on the roof and a cross on top of that. Danny’s waiting for me, sitting on a short wall that runs along one sidewalk.

  “Hey,” he says, standing up and rubbing his palms on his jeans.

  “Hi! Doesn’t Hamlet open up tonight?”

  He snorts. “Yeah, I guess, I don’t know. I’m not going. Come on, follow me.”

  “Famous last words.” But of course, I follow him. “Where’s Pete?”

  “This is just an us thing.”

  Uh-oh. I’m not sure this is a good idea. I hear Johnny’s voice in my head, something about Danny “making a move.” But because I’m a wee little freshman who doesn’t think things through, I follow Danny up a decorative brick wall that has lots of holes and stuff. It’s an easy climb, though it’s high. A few seconds later, I’m on top of the roof with him. I brush my hands off, and Danny walks casually to where a ladder has been bolted to a sloped roof that goes even higher than where we are now, like a steeple I guess.

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  “I never kid. Didn’t you know that about me?”

  He starts climbing up. I wait till he gets to the top of the slope, which levels off into a little plateau where a simple, slender cross is fixed, looking out over the city.

  “Well?” Danny calls.

  “You’re seriously going to break into a church? Are you in that big a hurry to go to Hell?”

  “I’m not breaking in,” Danny says, sounding hurt. “Jesus, why would you say that?”

  “Don’t swear,” I say, eyeing the cross warily and waiting for lightning to smite us or something.

  “Would you just get up here?”

  So I just get up there. Danny sits down crisscross applesauce beneath the cross, and I turn around three times like a dog before doing the same. Then I take in a breath.

  “Wow.”

  “I was hoping you’d like the view. Me and a friend of mine from school used to come up here to smoke. My real school, I mean.”

  The church tower looms high. There are taller buildings within a few blocks of here, but this is the highest point for a ways around. All around us, orange and white lights cast glows on the streets. Traffic seems to be moving smoothly, no horns. There’s even a little breeze up here that teases my bangs around my chin.

  “Dude, this is cool,” I say. “Sorry about the ‘breaking in’ thing.”

  “It’s cool,” Danny says, but he sounds nervous. His hands can’t keep still.

  “What’s going on?” I say, feeling like I shouldn’t ask. I don’t know if it’s like instinct or just what, but I have this terrible idea of what he’s about to do.

  Danny looks at me. He looks so tired. I look at him. He looks at me. I look at—

  —him moving toward me, closing his eyes and opening his mouth!

  I lean back. “Dude!” Dang it, I knew it.

  His eyes go wide. “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  Danny resets himself. He gestures wildly at the city below us, like that’s supposed to make everything clear. “I was … I mean, I just wanted to kiss you.”

  I cover my eyes. “Danny …”

  He faces out. “You don’t want to.”

  “No.” I say this as gently as I can.

  “Shoulda known. Who is it? That Zach guy?”

  “No. I mean, I hope so someday, but no, it’s not that.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” Danny says, and clenches his mouth shut.

  Part of me wants to leave, because dealing with Danny gives me headaches sometimes. But I can’t, because the truth is, I like him, and regardless of why, he’s hurt. I don’t like him in a boyfriend way, or a kissing way. Just in a friend way. But a good friend. Someone I know I could call at three in the morning if I needed to. And like I worried about, now I’m sure I hurt him even though I didn’t want to, and walking away right now doesn’t seem like a friend thing to do.

  Danny says, “Did I ever have a chance?”

  “Oh, Danny …”

  “Stop, no! No ‘Oh, Danny’ shit. Just tell me.”

  I sit up straight. “No. You never had a chance. There. Does that make you feel better? Because it doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel like a bitch.”

  Danny’s
quiet for a long time before saying, “You’re not. I get it. But we are friends, right?”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “Then, as a friend, can I ask you … look, it’s just really important to me right now if I could … if I could just kiss you.”

  “I don’t think that’s something that friends do.”

  He’s not looking at me. “Cadence. Please. You don’t understand how much this means to me right now.”

  “I’m sorry, no. It’s not okay. Nothing good’s coming out of that.”

  “Even if it’s a mercy rule?”

  “A what?”

  Danny sits there for a long time before standing up and staring at the traffic. I don’t think he sees it.

  “In football … in high school football, I mean … they’ve got this thing called the mercy rule. It means that if one team is kicking the hell out of another team, then the clock doesn’t stop running anymore, so that the losing team won’t be any more embarrassed than they already are. In fact it just happened to us last week. To our school. Football. It’s a football rule. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Civilized? Yeah.”

  He pauses for a sec before whispering it again, like to himself: “Yeah.”

  Then he goes on. “Except there’s no mercy rule the rest of the time. Not in real life. I don’t get one. You don’t get one. It’s not like once you’ve been beat down to a certain level, they leave you alone. Nope. They just keep going. Harder and harder. I suppose they’re playing by professional rules at that point. Well, I guess that’s okay. Because the clock still runs out. This clock has run out, too.”

  “Danny?”

  No answer.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yep,” he says. “Gotta go.”

  He moves to the ladder and hikes down it. I stay put. When he gets to the ground, Danny shoves his hands into his pockets and walks on down the sidewalk.

  What I really want to do is get up and go after him and hug him. But I can’t do it. Because for one thing, he looks like he doesn’t want anyone bugging him. And for another … well, dang it! Why does contact always have to be something sexual? Why can’t I hug him without it turning into a sex thing? It’s not fair.

  Boys are dumb.

  I wait until he’s out of sight before climbing down myself and taking a trolley home.

  FINAL SCORE

  SPARTANS

  03

  Trojans

  27

  Too Tough to Die

  BRADY

  We always review the game Saturday mornings. Can’t even look at the screen. Not even when Coach tells me to five different times.

  “Brady!” he says. “Your head in the game?”

  “No, Coach.”

  “Damn skippy!” Coach says. “Damn it, son, the season’s not over. This is for life, not for points! We lose the rest of these games, that’s how it goes. We lose the rest of the games because you all didn’t put out, that is unacceptable! You get me?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “Good! You want to win those games?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “I can’t hear you! All of you, you want to win those games?”

  Everyone but me screams, “Yes, Coach!”

  Can feel the whole team looking at me when they do it. Can feel my backup QB shifting around. Wanting to take my spot.

  I don’t say anything else the rest of review. When it’s over I walk out fast. Kinda expect someone to call me back. Like Donte. Or Coach. But they don’t. They let me go.

  I walk all the way home. Thinking. Choosing.

  Decide I know what I got to do.

  Turn left and head for Starbucks.

  Not the first time I’ve had to spare for change. I’m good at it. And this isn’t sparing. Not really.

  It’s leveraging my resources.

  I say Hi to a hefty brunette in office clothes. Wonder what she does that she has to be dressed up on a Saturday morning.

  “Sorry to bug you. I have this Starbucks card, but I’m short on cash— if you were going to pay with cash, would you mind giving that to me and I’ll charge your drink to my card? I’ll even throw in a muffin or something, so you know I’m on the level.”

  She says no. Lotta people say no. I can tell it’s because they think it must be a scam. But a few say yes. Doesn’t take many Frappuccinos to get the money I need. I feel bad about charging so much on the card.

  Won’t matter a few hours from now. I’ll write Coach a note or something. Apologizing. For losing again last night. For getting mercy ruled last week. For taking the team down. For everything. He gave me a plan, and I blew it already.

  Head to Walgreens. Buy a bottle of Tylenol. Go across the street to a grocery store and buy another one. On the way home I hit a convenience store for one more.

  That should do it. Should be enough to make shit stop hurting.

  DONTE

  My cell phone rings with a Linje Knife ringtone. Man, I’m tired. Just want to stare at TV all day. I grunt as I lean over my outstretched legs to pick the phone up off the table. The ID shows it’s Brady.

  “’Sup,” I say, lazily scrolling with the TV remote. Nothing’s ever on on Saturdays.

  “D?”

  “Hey, man.” I sit up a bit. Brady looked so damn tired and just done that no one tried to stop him when he left review this morning. He really didn’t look like someone who wanted to do any talking, so I let him go.

  Now he sounds like he sure as hell needs someone to talk to.

  “Need your … help.”

  “Sure, yeah, what’s going on?” I say. “Where you at?”

  “… Home.”

  “You don’t sound good, man.”

  Silence.

  “Brady? Hey, man, what’s up? Brady. Brady!”

  “Help.”

  The remote falls from my hand as I race for the new-old car. “Tell me what’s up,” I say, fumbling for my keys. “B? Come on, man. Tell me.”

  But the line is quiet. The clock on my cell phone screen still ticks off seconds, though. Brady hasn’t hung up. He’s just not making any noise.

  Cursing, I peel out in the rush to get to Brady’s apartment. I wonder if I should call 911. But what if Brady’s just hammered? Just had too much to drink? B doesn’t need the cops coming to that address, not when they’re there so much as it is.

  I choose the hard thing, and turn off the phone. This way, I can focus on the drive.

  Saturday— not much traffic. I make it in less than ten minutes. They feel like hours.

  Not bothering with being polite, I throw open the flimsy front door of the apartment and rush in. Brady’s in the living room, wearing nothing but paper-thin white boxers.

  There’s a row of Tylenol bottles lined up on the coffee table. Guarding them is a half-empty bottle of Vodka. His mom’s brand, called something like “Cheap-Ass Shit.”

  “You get hurt, B? What kind of …”

  Then it hits me. B’s breathing is shallow, his skin yellow.

  “Oh no …” I run over to my friend. “Get up, come on, man, get up, ah shit, what did you do? Huh? What’d you do? Shit, man, get up.”

  I haul Brady to his feet.

  “Nooooo,” Brady groans, only half-conscious. “S’okay, I’ll throw it up, I’ll throw it up, see?”

  He lifts his right hand toward his mouth as if to shove the fingers down his throat, but the hand only travels halfway.

  I swear again and somehow manhandle Brady out of the living room and shove him into the new-old Accord.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” I hear myself chant, fumbling for my keys again. They drop on the pavement. I pick them up, drop them again, hit my head on the mirror—

  Stop, I tell myself, possibly out loud, but I’m not sure. Get your head in the game. This a man’s game. This a man’s game now. Don’t be afraid, just get in the game.

  Carefully, I slide into the driver’s seat, start the car, and accelerate out of the neighborhood. Brady is motionless in the passe
nger seat, head thunking against the window.

  Instinctively, I punch Brady on the arm. It’s like hitting a plastic sack of meat.

  “Wake up, man,” I say. “C’mon, B, you got to stay up. Come on. Head in the game.”

  Brady lifts his head, eyes bleary.

  “Sorry, man,” he says, gazing but not seeing out the front window. “I din mean … sorry.”

  “Just stay awake with me, all right?” My tires squeal around a corner. Why’s the hospital so far away? “Just stay up, man. How many’d you take, huh? Do you know how many you took?”

  “Bottle,” Brady says after a pause. “Or two …”

  “Two bottles?” My voice hits the same pitch as the tires did around the last turn. “You took two whole bottles, B? When? How long ago?”

  “Dunno. Hour. Coupla hours. Maybe more. D, I’m sorry, man. Couldn’t’a find a gun … had to use the pussy way …”

  I focus on the road, on the hospital so far away.

  BRADY

  DREA

  Best costume idea ever! Kelly texts me the Saturday before Halloween. Have you seen Nightmare Before Christmas?

  No, I send back. I’m lying on my bed, trying hard not to listen to Mom sobbing in the kitchen at the moment, my earbuds in deep and music turned up, but it’s not enough. It’s one of the songs Kelly sings in her truck all the time.

  Google Sally Nightmare Before Christmas, Kelly writes. Look at her hair! Oh my god you would be perfect! Please please please!

  Grateful for the distraction, I do what she says, the entire time wishing Dad would just do something about Mom.

  I guess I’m not as distracted as I thought.

  I search Google Images and look at a thin, pale doll with hair very close to my color red, her skin stitched together like she’s been broken over and over again.

  Kind of cool, I write.

  Go watch the movie, Kelly orders. Or you can come over here if you want to but I am covered in two different shades of baby poop at the moment.

  Smiling despite the sounds that sink through my closed door from the kitchen, I write, Okay I’ll find it online.

  Awesome! Kelly writes. Let me know as soon as you’re done what you think!