Leverage

by Joshua C. Cohen

  Like all the rest.

  Every time.

  “Kurt,” Assistant Coach Stein grunts as we tug-of-war for the stereo, “I don’t know what beef you got with Scott but this is—”

  “Thuh-thuh-thuh—”

  “Enough!” Coach bellows. “Shut off that goddamned machine and be done with it. We got a goddamned game to finish and I don’t know what the hell the idea is here distracting this team with this ... this ... vulgarity! Now get ready to get out on the field and win this game!”

  Danny! WHERE ARE YOU!!!

  Coach has his arm extended, waiting for me to hand over the stereo. I glance over and see Scott sneering in triumph. Tom and Mike watch me with narrowed eyes like rats trying to see past a trap. The rest of my teammates only look confused. They drop their heads, avoiding my eyes, pretending the insides of their helmets need adjusting. It isn’t going at all how we planned it, how Tina described it. They’re supposed to hear the recording and all would be explained. And Danny would come in and speak the truth, finally, tell the others what they did, shame my captains until they walked away forever. But it’s not working. I’ve failed. Danny’s abandoned me. I’m all alone, about to be destroyed.

  “Thuh-thuh-thuh—” I stammer.

  “Not one more word!” Coach shouts. “You hear me?!”

  55

  DANNY

  Even after I text Bruce a second time, Coach Nelson won’t let go of my arm. Bruce says he’s on his way but the crowd by the concession stands is massive and meeting here isn’t exactly the best spot to pick. I glance up at the stadium clock, see that time is running out. My choice is being made for me just like I wanted but, somehow, I’m not feeling relief. Another five minutes pass and still no Bruce.

  “Coach,” I try. “I gotta use the bathroom.”

  “Me too,” he says. “Soon as we see Bruce, we can all go.”

  “Coach, come on!” I’m about to start my superwhine when Bruce pops up in the crowd. Finally!

  “Bruce!” Coach calls to him. Bruce sees Coach and looks surprised but not startled, not like he’s hiding a secret. When Bruce walks up to us, Coach lets go of me so he can get his mitts on Bruce.

  “Now, look—” Coach is talking to Bruce but I don’t stick around for the lecture. Hoping I’m not too late, I slip behind the first two fat bodies mooing past me, then zip through a mass of people traipsing back to the stands carrying Family Pack snack treasures. The area is stuffed with slow-moving bodies. It’s easy for someone small as me to squeeze through the gaps and weave around bellies and butts unnoticed. I’ve had years of practice doing it.

  Jumping off cliffs begins with a single superscary step into thin air. Only way to do it is to not think about it. That’s how I pep-talk myself while dashing toward the school entrance, rushing down the hallway, and arriving in front of the closed varsity locker-room door. Only way to enter that locker room is to open that door, take that first step no matter how terrifying, worry about falling only after you can’t turn back.

  Problem is I’d way rather jump off another eighty-foot quarry cliff than walk through that door. Chances for bodily harm are much higher here tonight.

  No mistaking it, I hear Kurt’s voice on the other side and then the recording. I hear Kurt’s voice but it’s locking up. Then that coach of theirs roars like a grizzly. I’m supposed to go in there?! Then Scott is shrieking, wild and raw, bringing back flashes of the cruelty he’s only too happy to inflict. My back presses firmly against the opposite wall.

  Go in there now!

  I remain right where I stand, unable to move. The sounds coming out of the room—all heavy and brutish, could be from a cave full of bears about to square off. It’s no place for a pip-squeak like me. I mean, I’m just a little monkey. What the hell can I accomplish? My role in the plan starts to feel ridiculous. Kurt can handle himself in there. But me? Are you kidding? I know he said he’d protect me, but how’s he going to do that against thirty guys?

  My feet move ... but they’re going in the wrong direction. I’m shuffling down the hall, away from the locker room. Kurt’s played the recording. That’s good enough. That’s truth enough. Let them know we have them recorded. That’s all that we really came to do. Expose them. He doesn’t need me. What good am I going to do at this point?

  “Duh-duh-Danny!” It’s Kurt’s voice, and it doesn’t sound big or angry or tough. It sounds like a cry for help. It frightens me. How can I help him? If someone big as him is in trouble, I’m dead. My feet keep shuffling down the hall. The closer I get to the end of the hall, about to leave the building, get back out in the cold night air, put distance between me and them ... well, that should make me feel safer, make me feel better. But it doesn’t. My steps get heavier.

  “Aaagh.” I jam both fists deep in my jacket pockets in frustration.

  One step, a voice whispers to me. One step. Just take one step. Don’t think. Just step.

  I turn around and take one step. Then another. Then another. My feet are light and my heart races the way it does when I know I’m about to leap off the cliff or let go of the high bar or hit the springboard and fly over the vault. My steps turn into a jog and then I’m in front of the locker-room door and I’m pulling it open and stepping inside, smelling the rank air. I’m in that moment of suspension before the speed and velocity of gravity overtake me, turn me into a missile. As I turn the corner, see the helmet and pads and body armor of the first players, I know the ground is racing up to greet me, promising a painful landing, no crash mats in sight. And then my mouth opens—not to scream but to fight. To protect Kurt. To be his and Ronnie’s voice.

  56

  KURT

  You better listen to him,” cries a small voice just as I’m about to give up and hand over the stereo to Coach. “All of you listen!” Big bodies part and there is little Danny pushing his way past beefy arms and legs, coming toward me. I reach out and grab his elbow like it’s my last chance at a lifeline, tug him the rest of the way into the locker room until he stands in front of me, facing the circle of football players, ready to blast them all with the truth.

  “That recording is proof,” Danny scolds the entire locker room. “So you better listen real close.” Coaches, trainers, and players alike blink in surprise. You can practically see them all thinking the same thing: Who is this kid?

  “All of you,” Danny continues with my hand resting on his shoulder, letting him know I got his back. “Your captains—Scott, Tom, and Mike—they . . . raped Ronnie Gunderson. I saw it with my own eyes! I witnessed it! That recording’s them admitting it. You all heard it! Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

  Danny pauses a moment and, in the shocked silence, I hear him swallow before continuing. “And Ronnie Gunderson—my teammate—killed himself because of it. Coach, that recording is their confession. It’s real. It’s the truth! Kurt’s not playing any sort of trick.” Danny’s head tilts and I can tell he’s watching Scott, now, as he says this. Scott’s left eye starts twitching and his lips peel back from his teeth. Mike and Tom both start bouncing like they’re getting tasered.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Coach’s face turns a deep red as he points a finger at Danny. “Son, you realize what you’re accusing these boys of?! I goddamn guarantee I’ll string you up myself if this is some sort of twisted joke.”

  “He’s sick!” Scott shrieks, high-pitched, uncool. “The little faggot’s sick in the head!” Scott lurches for Danny. So does Mike. Assistant Coach Stein puts an arm out and stops Scott, but Mike is still coming. I let go of Danny’s shoulder, cock my arm, ready to slug Studblatz, when Terrence and Rondo step in between us and shove Mike back over to his side of the circle. Danny remains untouched.

  “Scott used a broomstick on Ronnie Gunderson. I saw the whole thing.” The words stream out Danny’s mouth fast as the demon inside can shovel them, like Lamar’s spirit—or maybe Ronnie’s—is working with him to get the truth exposed. “. . . and Mike stuck his . . .” Danny keeps going, not risking even
a pause for air. “. . . Ronnie begged them to stop. They laughed at him while he screamed—”

  “Look, you little . . .” Coach sputters, face splotchy. Instead of finishing his sentence, Coach slaps his cap against his leg, then starts running his other hand back and forth over his scalp like he’s shampooing his thin hair.

  “You heard them on that recording!” Danny shouts. I place my hand back on his shoulder. Bodies start shifting and rustling but otherwise my teammates hold position, obedient to Coach, as we’ve all been trained.

  “You’re going to believe this little turd?” Scott pleads. No one answers him. Tom and Mike still don’t speak, just keep lightly bouncing. “They’re making it all up,” Scott goes on, his voice tightening, trying to shake off Assistant Coach Stein’s grip but Coach Stein isn’t letting go just yet. Scott tries catching the eyes of all the downturned faces. “Guys, who you gonna believe?” Scott asks.

  I want to know the same thing.

  “That’s it!” Coach barks, like he’s regained his balance. “All of you. Get out there. Halftime’s over. We got a game to win. Enough nonsense. Get your asses out there now!”

  One thing stuttering’s taught me is sometimes speaking is overrated. Sometimes you can say it all without uttering a sound. I grip Danny’s shoulder, hold him in place against the outgoing tide of bodies. The two of us a little sandbar in a moving stream of limbs and pads and helmets. Scott, Tom, and Mike notice us and they hold back as well. No way is Scott letting me and Danny get Coach alone.

  In a minute, the locker room is empty except for the seven of us—both coaches, all three captains, Danny, and me.

  “Boys,” Coach tries again. His voice is quieter, but it ain’t softer. He’s real close to blowing again. “I’m asking—no, I’m telling you—for the last time. Get out on that field.”

  “It ain’t over yet,” I say, without a single stutter. I feel Danny’s shoulder broaden, straightening up.

  “Yeah,” he adds. “It ain’t over.” Then I feel him turn to Coach. “You can’t play them. Not after what they did. It’s wrong. What they did is unforgivable. Ronnie killed himself because of it.”

  “Shut up!” Scott jumps and Coach Stein regrabs him, tugs him back. I’ve never seen Scott completely berserk; it’s as if a dozen snakes slipped under his skin. Coach Stein’s battle to restrain him gets help when Tom shifts over to contain Scott.

  “You’ll lose the team if you play them.” Danny keeps going, his words working on Scott like acid drizzling down on his flesh, melting him. I squeeze his shoulder, letting him know I won’t let anyone get at him, not even Coach. “They know the truth, now. The team knows. You know. The team won’t play for them,” Danny pushes.

  “Boy . . .” Coach begins, about one second from exploding on Danny, when Scott beats him to it.

  “So what?!” Scott wails. “So what if we did do it? No one’s going to say shit! Except you.” Scott reaches over Coach Stein’s arm and aims a dagger-finger at Danny. I feel Danny flinch. Coach reels his head toward Scott like he’s just taken a hit to the jaw. “The only mistake we made,” Scott hisses, snakes slithering faster under his flesh, taking over his body now, “was not finding you in that storage room and doing you the same way we did your little friend. That would’ve taught you never to speak up, boy!”

  “Shut up!” Tom barks at Scott, shoving his co-captain backward. Tom’s eyes saucer with alarm and he turns to Coach. “I didn’t do nothing,” Tom tells Coach.

  “Yeah, sure, you didn’t do nothing.” Scott laughs like a crazy man, his eyes rolling around the room. “Just held the little shit down for us while we broke him.”

  “You’re the one that shoved the broom up him,” Tom yells at his co-captain, jamming his finger in Scott’s chest.

  “Back off me!” Scott hisses at Tom. “Go shove Mike around. He’s the one couldn’t wait to whip out his dick on him.” Scott’s eyes circle wildly as he deflects Tom’s accusation. “He’s the real homo.”

  “I AIN’T NO HOMO!” Studblatz roars, swinging his helmet by the face mask into the nearest locker. The room booms with the noise. “It was you told me to do it!” Studblatz blurts. “You told me to do him.”

  “And you fuckin’ loved it,” Scott spits at Studblatz, his words nasty as cobra venom. “Everyone knows you’re a faggot. Had a hard-on for that twerp soon as I mentioned it.”

  “Shut up!” Tom growls, his eyes dancing between Scott and Coach, waiting for an unseen force to crush him. “I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t touch him. I only held him down. Scott and Mike are the ones nailing him.”

  For a moment all is silent as Coach Brigs puts his hand against a locker and slowly sits down on the pine bench. His mouth hangs open like he wants to shout, but can no longer speak. The hand clutching his cap has crumpled it into a ball with a bill. His other hand comes off the lockers and lies across his chest like he’s hearing the national anthem. Mouth still open, unspeaking, he drops his cap on the bench while his other hand begins rubbing his chest in a circular pattern. Maybe he’s having a heart attack.

  “What in God’s name have you boys done?” he finally asks, his voice more a croak.

  “God didn’t have nothing to do with it,” Danny says.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Scott pushes past Tom and moves toward Danny. I step in front of Danny, ready to meet the attack, but Coach Stein grabs Scott by the elbow and spins him around.

  “You take one more step toward him,” Coach Stein says, “and I’m going to shut you down, Scott. Don’t care if you’re eighteen yet or not. I will take you down, right here, right now, you touch a hair on that boy’s head.”

  “Frank,” Coach Brigs says. “That won’t be necessary.” Coach slowly stands back up off the bench. His hand stops massaging his chest and it comes back up to smooth down the thin wisps covering his shiny skull. He’s not looking at any of us as he speaks, but staring off somewhere only he can see. “We’ve got a game to play. A game to win. I’ll—we’ll—deal with this afterward. Let’s just go out there and finish this one.”

  “There’s nothing to take care of,” Scott insists, and now he sounds like himself—calmer but still threatening, like he knows something the rest of the world doesn’t. “That recording don’t prove nothing. Recordings can be edited and fixed any which way. It’s still these two freaks’ word against ours. You try punishing us, Coach,” and here Scott turns his attention back to Assistant Coach Stein, “I’m going to make sure the world knows all about the little vitamin program you got going on here. In fact, I’ll blame everything on those pills and syringes that everyone’s favorite coaching staff”—Scott pats Coach Stein’s shoulder—“has been encouraging us to take.” Scott’s smiling again. “I bet the school board, the news, the state, would love to hear all about our D-bol, Deca-d, and Nandro connection. And we’ll spill everything. Trust me. They won’t hire you for school janitor once we get done.”

  Damn! I think. He is smart; smarter than me or Tina or Danny. Even smarter than Coach. He’s smarter and he’s going to get away with all of it.

  “But—” Danny starts and stops, unable to come up with anything else to say. I pull him back to me. I know when a fight’s finished. I learned that one a long time ago. There’s but one thing to do if you can’t beat them and you sure as hell can’t join them. You walk away.

  “Coach.” I speak up. “I can’t puh-puh-play alongside them. I’m done,” I say. Then I look over at Scott through my face mask. I take a big breath and let it out, see his eyes, still spoiling for a fight. I got to give it to him. He’s wicked, but he’s a wicked genius.

  “You win,” I tell him. “It’s over. You all wuh-wuh-win. I wuh-won’t saying nothing. But I ain’t puh-playing alongside you no more. It’s over. Danny wuh-wuh-won’t talk no more, either.” Studblatz crosses his arms, glaring at me but keeping quiet. “Tuh-tuh-tell your dad not to huh-handcuff me nuh-nuh-no more,” I say to Tom. “Tell him I don’t wuh-wuh-want no more trouble.”

 
My stutter’s coming back hard in defeat.

  “Better not,” Tom says, growing courageous again now that he knows Scott’s engineered their escape. “’Cause he told me he can make you go away forever if he wants.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut as I tug gently on Danny’s shoulder to retreat with me. He doesn’t resist. It’s over and I want to get out of here, never see this place again, maybe drop out of school. I can’t go here no more.

  “Kurt . . .” Coach Brigs calls, and with my eyes still shut, his voice sounds brittle and old, and for a second, it makes me think he’s cried in his life at some point. “Son, we need you . . .” he starts to say, but I don’t hear the rest because Danny and me are out the locker room and down the hallway. The only sound as we walk is my plastic cleats crackling against the concrete. My knee stops pinching, I realize, as Lamar settles back down on my shoulder for a moment, fanning my neck in warm wingbeats.

  It’s okay, he whispers, then lifts off again, setting the both of us free.

  I am moving through the school doors, cutting across the outer lawn spilling over with crowds of fans, hoping to slip past the field where I’ll never play again. I had a feeling it was going to end badly like this. Flushing my supply of D-bol down the toilet before the game seemed not only right, it seemed like fate. Why take that crap when it only helps me help the people that don’t care about me? Enough!

  “Kurt, hold up,” Danny calls. “Wait!” But I’m still going, don’t even realize how quiet it is out in the stadium and along the grassy hill or near the concession stand. That the band’s not playing, that there’s no music coming out of the new speakers. That no one’s cheering or even talking. That everyone’s silent.

  The Jumbotron screen is so big that even from this distance I can see it clearly, see that it’s broadcasting a view of itself as if someone’s pointing a camera at it.

  Someone is.

  Me.

  The view on it is coming from my helmet cam.

  “Whoa!” I whisper, except it doesn’t come out as a whisper. My voice rolls across the entire field, the concession stands, the grassy knoll, and the stadium, like a gust of wind.