Leverage

by Joshua C. Cohen

  “Give the ropes to the little guy, here,” Scott says. “Make him hold his captain up. Let’s see how loyal he really is.”

  Jankowski yanks me over to Studblatz, who shoves the ropes into my hands. “Now grab on real tight, fairy,” Studblatz growls. “You don’t want your friend to fall.”

  Soon as they’re in my possession, I slowly let the ropes slip through my fingers, guiding Bruce gently back down to the floor.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?” Scott barks. “We didn’t say you could let him down. Pull him back up now or I’m going to smack you.” Studblatz comes over and cuffs me on the head, then takes back the ropes and heaves on them until Bruce dangles even higher than he did the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” I mouth up at Bruce. He doesn’t respond. Studblatz forces the ropes back into my hand.

  “You think he’ll pass out in that position?” Tom asks Scott. “Being upside down that long?”

  “Won’t hurt him if he does.”

  “Guys, why don’t you let him come down for a bit,” I suggest. My throat’s salty and raw. I start to let the ropes slide through my hands again. Studblatz gets in my face and I flinch. He grins, just standing there, enjoying the moment. Then he hauls back and slugs my shoulder, knuckles hitting deep to the bone. Feels like the socket’s exploding. Beyond the pain, my fingers in that arm go numb. Bruce starts falling. I clutch at the sliding rope with my good hand, feel it burn through my callused fingers until I stop him with about eight feet to spare.

  “He’ll come down when we say so,” Studblatz says, needing no excuse to nail me again. He hauls on the ropes, hoisting the limp body back up. Bruce’s arms dangle uselessly; he’s not even trying to wrap them around his head this last drop. He’s fading, and if he hits the floor headfirst, his neck will snap like a dry branch.

  “So let’s see how tough you are,” Scott says to me. “Let’s see how good you are at sticking up for your friends. Piggy up there better hope you’re more loyal to him than you were to Gunderson when you were hiding in that corner, watching us, probably beating off. What kind of friend are you? What kind of teammate?”

  Studblatz and Jankowski snicker. The questions hurt worse than even the punch.

  “It’s not funny,” I cry. Tom stomps over and spits in my face, then punches me in the chest hard enough that my heart hiccups.

  “No one told you to talk.” Tom cuffs me on the head. “Did I tell you to talk?” he asks. “DID I TELL YOU TO TALK?!”

  There’s nothing to say. Nothing to do but cower when Tom swings again and his fist targets the same shoulder Studblatz already pulped. A bomb goes off where he hits and the arm drops to my side. The only thing keeping me from letting go of the rope is screaming agony cramping my good hand into a tight fist.

  The mangled arm hurts bad. Real bad.

  “Please . . . please . . . let us go . . .” I whisper.

  “Hey assholes,” Bruce calls down in a strangled rasp. I silently plead for him to shut up, don’t anger them any more than they already are. “I figured out why you all like to fuck little boys.”

  “Keep talking,” Studblatz hisses. “Every word’s more beatdown for you.”

  “It’s ’cause all those steroids you guys take. You can’t get it up anymore. You think scaring some kid makes up for the fact that you jerkoffs have limp dicks and no nuts? How pathetic is that? Homecoming king can’t even get it up for his queen.” Bruce tries to laugh but it comes out as a cough. His face is the color of a deep bruise and I think maybe his eyes might start crying blood, they’re so red.

  “You think that’s funny?! You think that’s funny?!” Tom shouts. He pushes me away and starts lowering the ropes. “I’m going to stomp the shit out of—”

  “No.” Scott stops Tom. “Hoist him up. Hoist him way up. Come on. See how tough he talks in a minute. See if either of ’em ever wants to snitch again.”

  “Knew you were too chickenshit to let me down,” Bruce rasps.

  “Shut up, faggot.”

  “I know you . . . are, but what ... what ... am I?” Bruce grunts.

  “Let’s just lower him,” Tom says. “Kick the shit out of him.”

  I think it might be a good time to try easing Bruce back down again. I get him to about fifteen feet when Scott steps over to me and swings for my face. I duck.

  Thunk.

  Scott’s fist bites into the top of my head, knocking me sideways as my skull absorbs it. Hurts a lot less than the shoulder punch or chest punch.

  “God damn it! Little shit’s got a stone skull,” Scott says, shaking out his hand. “My fuckin’ pinky.”

  “What a pussy!” Bruce huffs. Scott tucks his punching hand under his armpit and stares up at Bruce, pacing underneath him.

  “Scott, let’s get—” Tom starts.

  “Shut up!” Scott snaps at his lineman, never taking his eyes off Bruce above. “You think you can talk to me like that?” Scott demands, still walking a circle around his prey. “You think someone like ... you gets away with that, huh?”

  “Scott—” Tom tries again.

  “I said shut up!” Scott barks at Tom, glancing at him only a moment before turning his attention upward again. “Hoist this pig up!” Scott orders me. I only stand there anchoring my friend, not hoisting and not lowering. Studblatz shoves me out of the way and hauls on the ropes, cranking Bruce higher and higher until his knees, the top point on his dangling body, are almost even with the thirty-foot pulley bolts.

  “That’s it,” Scott says mostly to himself before calling up to Bruce. “Still feel like a tough guy now? Huh?”

  “Scott, come on, man,” Tom says.

  Scott ignores Tom, glances at Studblatz instead. “Mike, give the ropes back to the little snitch,” Scott orders. “He still hasn’t proven his loyalty.”

  Studblatz forces the ropes back into my hands.

  “It ain’t funny anymore,” Bruce says. I can barely hear him up there. “Let me down. Danny let me down.”

  The rope slides slowly through my fingers like I’m reeling out line on a stubborn fish. We can wait them out, I tell myself. Just a little longer. Already, Jankowski’s anxious to go. Hold on, Bruce. Just hold on. Let them get their kicks and leave.

  “Luh-luh-luh-let him duh-duh-down,” comes a new voice.

  Kurt!

  “Yuh-yuh-you’ve had your fuh-fuh-fuh-fun.” Kurt’s standing at the locker-room entrance, stepping cautiously into the gym as the door closes behind him.

  “You again!” Scott spits. “Why are you always hanging where you’re not wanted?”

  “They got the puh-puh-point,” Kurt says, ignoring Scott’s question. “No one’s gonna suh-suh-suh-say nothing, okay? Juh-juh-juh-just let him duh-duh-duh-down.”

  “Kurt.” Bruce sighs weakly, and I hear the relief I feel. Kurt, body moving in a way his mouth won’t match, steps over and around the mats smooth as a stalking lion. He slows up when he reaches Tom, as if not to startle him. Scott eyes Kurt, his mind calculating, I can tell, trying to keep the plan on track despite the interruption. Scott reaches a decision, steps toward me, and punches my bad shoulder.

  Fire erupts at the spot in my arm where muscle has turned into gristle. I won’t let go of the ropes, though. I will pass the loyalty test Scott thinks I’ve already failed. I will pass.

  “Come on, Suh-suh-suh-Scott,” Kurt calls over Tom’s shoulder. “No one’s suh-suh-saying nuh-nuh-nuh-nothing. Bruce and Duh-duh-Danny wuh-wuh-won’t talk. Thu-thuthat’s the end of it.”

  No one moves.

  “Bruce,” Kurt calls up to him. “You won’t suh-suh-say nuh-nuh-nothing, wuh-wuh-wuh-will you?”

  Bruce, barely conscious now, gives the slightest head shake, agreeing not to say anything.

  “See?” Kurt says. “We go about our buh-buh-business. Act luh-luh-like nuh-nuh-nothing happened. Luh-luh-let him down. Guh-guh-go home. We got a guh-guh-game in two days. Coach ain’t guh-guh-gonna be happy with you wuh-wuh-wasting time on these tuh-t
uh-two. Luh-luh-let’s go.”

  Kurt has them. I can feel it. He’s saying all the right things. My good hand, cramping from holding Bruce up by itself, slowly loosens and the rope starts easing ever so slightly through my fingers. This time it will work. I can lower Bruce while Kurt keeps talking in his calm tone, even with his stutter, lulling his three captains. It will work. But the pulleys need oil. I’ve got Bruce down to about eighteen feet when my stiff fingers let too much rope slip past them. The pulleys let out a sharp squeak, breaking the soft hypnosis Kurt’s casting over the gym.

  Scott looks up, sees how much I’ve lowered Bruce. His eyes do a triangle from Bruce to Kurt to me and something in him goes off.

  “Did I give you permission to let him down?!” Scott screams in my face. “Did I?!”

  A camera flashes same time as a thing—a fist—slams up under my chin and my knees wobble. Then darkness roars up over me like a summer twister, covering my ear-drums and eyes, stripping me of everything but failure, weakness, and defeat. The world howls above me in fury as I topple over, knowing I’ve let go of the rope and Bruce is falling ...

  46

  KURT

  Bruce falls without a cry. Just like Lamar. Both of them sneaking out of the world without complaint. Only sound is the clack of teeth when Scott sucker punches Danny, throwing an uppercut to his chin. Second sound, as Danny tips over, is his skull gonging against the steel base of the ring stand. Then those rope pulleys squeaking loud as hamster wheels once Danny lets go, dropping Bruce headfirst from the gym rafters ...

  When Crud Bucket duct-taped me and Lamar inside that storage tub as punishment, you’d think I’d’ve known exactly when he stopped being alive. Packed tight as twins in a belly—face to armpit, shin to hip, shoulder to ribs—the only sound in that cramped blackness after we both stopped blubbering was Lamar’s rhythmic wheezing. He’s the one told me to use my belt buckle. Use the metal tong, he said, puffing to keep my shirt out of his mouth. My arm couldn’t straighten to reach the buckle, so Lamar slid the belt off me, then fed it up to my trapped hand. All the while he’s breathing like oily rags are stuffed into his lungs. When I got the second hole punched through, I told him to relax because I’d drill enough holes to turn that plastic tub into a spaghetti strainer. His wheezing quieted soon after, like I’d calmed him down. I’d just finished the twelfth hole, started on the thirteenth, when the jeans around my bottom knee got wet. Then that smell. Piss. I’m working like crazy to get holes punched and here’s Lamar pissing on me like it’s a big joke. It wasn’t funny. I told him so. Stop pissing on me, fucker!

  I got to lie with him like that for a day before Crud Bucket cut through the duct tape, unsealed the tub, and peeled the lid off. I’d punched four hundred and thirty-seven holes before that lid came off. Four hundred and thirty-seven. I told Lamar I’d turn it into a spaghetti strainer. I told him. If he just waited, is all ...

  A force—a bomb blast—blows me forward. Arms outstretched, I try to catch a body falling from the sky, attempt the impossible, try to save Bruce, try to make it up to Lamar, make up for the past. I drive into Bruce’s dropping body like he’s a tackling dummy, wrapping my arms around him, changing his direction from down to sideways. His legs tangle over my shoulders as we crash forward across an eight-inch mat. Bruce lands on his back as I somersault past him. Good chance he’s got the wind knocked out of him. Might’ve even broken a collarbone or busted a rib, but I’ve stopped him from hitting his head and snapping his neck.

  It’ll do.

  47

  DANNY

  I’m lying on a mat. A blue mat. In a gym. In our gym. My jaw aches so bad I feel it in my ears. The back of my head must have a railroad spike pushed through it. Shouts and curses zing back and forth above me. Thick legs and sneakers step over and around me, sinking the mat near my body, jarring my jaw, sending out waves of hurt. I blink, wonder how I got sand in my eyes, because they’re gritty. Haven’t risked turning my head to find out who the legs and sneakers belong to.

  A hand descends from above and rests on my forehead. A dusty T-shirt pats my nose. Then two hands slide under my arms and start lifting me.

  “Danny, let’s go, let’s go. Now. Now!” It’s Bruce’s voice. I think. It’s higher and trembling like a scared kid’s, frantic sounding, more like mine. A freaked-out kid is channeling Bruce’s mouth, like Ronnie back from the dead, warning me. “Let’s go. Come on!”

  “Guh-go!” a different voice pushes. I know that one.

  Hands—Bruce’s hands—grapple me, dragging me backward out of the gym, not giving me a chance to get my feet under me. My heel snags a mat, pulling me out of Bruce’s grip, and I fall on my ass. Bruce yanks me back up into a semi-drag and my feet shuffle along for the ride. Everything’s fuzzy. Kurt’s back is to us, arms outstretched, warding off . . . those . . . three. I lose sight of Kurt as Bruce tows me through the locker-room door violently enough that I think I must’ve somehow caused all the trouble.

  “We got to get out of here. We got to go. Now!”

  “But what about ... what about Kurt?”

  “He can take care of himself,” Bruce half yelps. “Those psychos are his friends.” I’ve never seen Bruce flat-out scared and it terrifies me. They’ve turned him into this? It must be hopeless.

  “Hurry up, Danny. Let’s go!” Bruce’s still got hold of me though my legs are working again. We make it out of the locker room and start down the deserted hall.

  “We can’t just abandon him,” I say. “We’ve got to help him.”

  “They almost killed me! Do you understand?” Bruce gives a single, violent head snap like he’s whipping wet hair out of his eyes. “They tried to kill me!” he says, like he’s only now realizing it. “No more. I’m not dying. I will get a gun, though. I swear to God. I will come back with a fucking gun and shoot those fuckers.”

  “We can’t leave Kurt.”

  “You save him,” Bruce calls over his shoulder as he skip-walks ahead. “Not me. Anyone even talks to those three, I don’t speak to them anymore.” Bruce’s pace is losing me. “I’m outta here. You coming or not?” Bruce asks but he’s already at the end of the hallway. He turns the corner, leaving me alone. By the time I climb the stairs, my head’s throbbing bad and Bruce is nowhere in sight. The hallways are empty except for “school’s out” celebration trash littering the ground. My legs weaken. I’m not going to make it out of the building before those three finish Kurt and get ahold of me.

  Get out! Get out! Follow Bruce!

  Kurt’s dying right now, downstairs in the gym.

  Go! Go!

  I kick a wadded-up ball of paper out of my path. Then I turn down the main hall and jog toward the principal’s office. The door is locked up tight. So is every classroom door I kick.

  “Somebody!” I yell. “Somebody!” I yell again. “Where the fuck is a teacher when you need one!?” I ask the empty hallway. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!” I holler, knowing this has to conjure an adult out of thin air ready to stuff a bar of soap in my mouth and assign me a week of detention. I mean, I always get busted for cussing. Always! I take three slow breaths, waiting.

  Nada!

  “Im-fucking-possible!”

  I jog down the hall, my head pounding.

  “Help!”

  48

  KURT

  What part of this don’t you get?” Scott asks me as if I’m genuinely confused. I keep my arms out, hoping to hold the three of them off while Bruce and Danny escape. “You’re with us,” Scott says. “Not them. We’re your team. Not them. They’re the enemy. They’re trying to destroy us.”

  “Think you can protect those little shits forever?” Jankowski asks. “Think we won’t get them?”

  Studblatz takes a step to the side, ready to go around me. I shift with him, promising to cut him off, and he stops but jabs a finger over my shoulder. “Those little fuckers are dead! You hear me? Dead!”

  “Your little Danny boy needs the Ronnie treatment,” Scott says. �
��Tom, think we should nail that snitch like we did Gunderson?” Scott asks over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off me.

  “Yeah,” Jankowski answers. “Bet he’d take it like a champ.”

  I wince at the words, feel my guts knot.

  “Whatsamatter?” Scott asks me. “You sorry you missed out on the fun the first time?” Then, louder, to Tom and Mike, “Maybe he wants Danny for himself.” Studblatz laughs like a hyena and Scott’s pleased with his joke. The three of them close around me. I take a step backward, my arms still out, like I’m setting up for a pass rush.

  “Hell, you’re just jealous,” Scott taunts. “Studblatz, tell’em. Nothing better than popping fresh meat like Gunderson. Best way to keep ’em in line.”

  “Gotta keep ’em in line,” Studblatz repeats.

  “Whaddya think, Tommy? Think Kurt should try it?”

  “Probably has already.”

  “Awwww, lookit. Our big fullback’s crying like a little bitch.”

  “Big, fuckin’ baby!”

  “Worse than Gunderson when we shoved it up his ass.”

  Tom’s chuckling. I’m having trouble keeping them in sight because everything’s starting to blur no matter how much I blink and wipe at my eyes. An old smell fills the air, smell of Crud Bucket’s sour breath in my face, threatening to kill me if I ever tell I caught him on top of Lamar. The smell of his sweat and breath and my fear—it’s all back here now, under my nose.

  “Come on, Kurt. So we popped Gunderson’s cherry. Big deal,” Scott says. “We didn’t tell him to kill himself. That’s on him. I mean, that’s weak. Like that Darwin dude said, survival of the fittest, baby. Ain’t that right, Tommy?”

  “Amen,” Jankowski answers with a grin. “Survival of the fittest, baby!”

  “Shit, yeah,” Studblatz agrees. “Gunderson wanted it. Loved it. Know how I know? He never fought back. He cried but he barely struggled, never escaped. That’s how they act when they secretly want it.”