Hit Count

by Chris Lynch

  “Get over here, you!” Coach Fisk barked at me before we reached the locker room entrance. He was the coach of the varsity, so it seemed like a good idea to answer when he called.

  “Yes, sir, Coach,” I said.

  “What was all that about?” he yelled, but I knew it was a good thing because he was shaking my hand as he yelled it.

  “It was all about football, Coach,” I said.

  “It sure was. What did you make, like ten tackles in the second half?”

  It was fourteen.

  “Don’t know, Coach. I wasn’t counting.”

  “And the majority of them unassisted, kid. That’s some nose for the ball you’ve developed.”

  The ones that were assisted, I didn’t really need any assistance.

  “It’s a team game, Coach. Everybody’s a contributor. Just happy to be on the field doing my part.” Fingers crossed that he didn’t see me decline to collect that fumble.

  He ignored the BS. “Listen, you put some muscle on that frame of yours during the off-­season, you could be looking at big things around here next year.”

  I heard what he was saying. I was too small.

  “And one more thing. I noticed a few times there, you bringing guys down on some plays.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s my job. Bring ’em down.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding, nodding. Then he made a fist, and thumped me in the middle of the chest just loud enough to make a noticeable noise. Varsity coaches knock harder than jayvee ones. “But from here on, don’t bring anybody down, on any plays.”

  “No?”

  “No. Knock them down. Smack them down. Drill them down. Break them down. You want them to remember you, and to flinch whenever they do. Much of the game of football happens here,” he said, reaching up and tapping my skull. “You want to get in there on the other guy. Then your job gets a lot easier. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir, Coach. I absolutely do.”

  “Great, then. Four games left this season. I’ll be watching. Play hard, have fun, and do your off-­season work. Then who knows, right?”

  I knew, that was who. I was always a quick learner, and so I didn’t need that lecture twice.

  I had to get bigger.

  And I had to get nastier.

  Everything Is a Competition

  “I shaved off another ten!” I shouted into my phone without even saying hello first.

  “Ooo. Did it hurt?”

  “Not at all,” I said, still thinking we were sharing the same wholesome conversation. “That’s the best thing. I tore another ten seconds right off my four-­mile time, and it felt like I was just cruising. You’d think I’d start to feel a bit of burn, but not at all.”

  Sandy was getting used to these sweaty excitable phone calls from me.

  “Are you all sweaty?”

  “What? Yeah, you know I am. You know I’m too fired up to shower before I call you when I have results like this.”

  I heard a breathy, muffled huffing sound on her end.

  “Are you laughing, Sandy?”

  “Don’t get upset, Arlo. It’s the right kind of laughing. Just yesterday I was comparing notes with Jenna, and the sweaty excitable phone calls she’s been getting from Dinos are a verrry different thing from these.”

  “You compare . . . What? Sandy?”

  “Don’t worry, she and I each felt we were getting the better deal.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about the comparison thing,” I said.

  “Relax, it’s not a competition.”

  Everything is a competition. How else do you know how you’re doing?

  “Sure, of course, you’re right. Are you not impressed at all with my four-­mile time?”

  She started giggling again, but it felt less troubling since she didn’t try to hide it from me.

  “I’m incredibly impressed. You are very fast. Who’s a fast boy then? Huh? Who’s a fast boy?”

  “See, Sandy, now that to me sounds like something way different from impressed.”

  “Oh stop, ya big baby. I am crazy impressed. And I’m even more impressed that you have to phone in your results to me before you can even get in the shower.”

  “Don’t make me sound lame.”

  “I didn’t. I made you sound lovely.”

  “Lovely. Now I’m lovely. Great, that’s just lame wearing a dress.”

  “Ha. That was a good one, Arlo. Now I have something juicy to say back to Jenna. Nobody’s going to want to see her boyfriend in a dress, that’s for sure.”

  I got caught up short then. Despite all the frustrating stuff in there, the dress thing and all, I ran right into the word. Boyfriend. I had been too shy to talk about anything as openly as that and had been spending my Sandy time instead clumsily trying to maneuver her into saying the word. I was wickedly unsuccessful, so much so you could possibly conclude she was on to me.

  She said it right there, though. She did.

  “Arlo?” she said after some time that had gotten away from me.

  First the ten seconds, then this.

  “Okay, if you’re going to keep being weird, I’ll just go now. I do have other boyfriends I need to talk to, you know.”

  And I was just about to say something really nice, too.

  “Witch,” I said, still trying to decide how I meant it.

  “Bwa-­ha-­ha . . .” she erupted, releasing that full and goofy laugh that was the least girly thing about her and also irresistible.

  “All right, all right,” I said, joining in the laughter finally. “I have to go take my shower now.”

  “Yes, stinko. I can smell you through the phone.”

  “See ya, then,” I said.

  I lay there flat on my bed, on top of the bedspread and spread eagle, shirtless. Smiling. Allowing life to be this good.

  “Yo, Lovely,” Lloyd yelped, causing me to jackknife right up off the bed and halfway to the ceiling.

  “Jesus, Lloyd,” I said, whipping my sweaty shirt at him in the doorway. It hit him right in the face because he couldn’t get his hands up quick enough to stop it. This was a guy who was renowned as a defender with superb reflexes and great hands. But as he bent to collect the sweatshirt off the floor and throw it back, it took him three grabs to even get hold of it.

  “What, are you phoning your times in to the papers now?” he said as it landed a foot or so from where I sat. “Nobody cares, y’know.”

  “Ass,” I said, going to my dresser to get fresh socks and underwear for after my shower. “What are you doing, hovering there through my whole conversation?”

  “I wasn’t hovering. I was just about to go out for a run, and ask you to come along. But then you spoiled everything by going out without me.”

  Even though he was standing there in his leather vest, baggy jeans, and mechanic boots, he was seriously expecting me to believe that he was just about to go out for a run. More alarmingly, he looked like he believed it himself.

  “I’m sorry, Lloyd,” I said, and in a way I really meant it. I was sorry we couldn’t go running together, sorry that he looked like a run might actually kill him, sorry he was so oblivious to it all. I tried to push past him to get to the shower, but he blocked me with a hand on my chest.

  “You’re not leaving me,” he said. I paused there, allowing his hand to hold me in place even though I didn’t need to do that. “You’re not leaving me in your dust, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  I gave him several more seconds, respectful seconds, with his hand pressed against my chest.

  “I wasn’t thinking that at all, brother,” I said. “That was the furthest thing from my mind.”

  We both looked at his hand there for a few seconds, then he let it drop and looked up at me, nodding.

  I nodded back. Then I continued on to my shower.

  I wasn’t thinking that at all, Lloyd, because I’ve already left you in the dust.

  Hit List

  I always knew I was good, becau
se I always was. Every sport, even the ones I was crap at, I was good at.

  But something changed. People started telling me I was good. Then I really believed it. It was right about that time it occurred to me that writing down some long-­term goals might be a help in keeping me locked in on what really mattered.

  Maybe it would be fun to start at the end and work backward. But what would that be? The NFL? Sure. But as long as you can get to that level, you might as well keep going for it. It would make no sense to just make it, get drafted by the Patriots maybe, and then relax. Since you are there, why not keep doing what got you there, and go for great. Shoot for the top.

  Canton, Ohio? Pro Football Hall of Fame?

  Okay, so starting at the end could get quickly out of hand. Start at the beginning.

  HIT LIST

  #1. Go for Great.

  ***

  “Ah, do my eyes deceive me, or are the four of us in the same place at the same time?” Ma said as I walked through the door, late. She was just laying a massive lasagna in the middle of the table. My first thought was that it reminded me of a football field, the shape and the way the pasta sheets made a grid pattern. That was the kind of thing Ma had done for our birthdays when we were little, but now my even thinking it was nuts.

  “That looks amazing, Ma,” I said. “I’m starving. Hey, Dad. Hey, Lloyd.”

  Lloyd just glared at me. I could tell he was fuming about something. Maybe that I was coming in late and he was forced to sit at the table and wait, like a little kid. He looked like he hadn’t showered in a week. Maybe he hadn’t.

  “Of course you’re starving,” Dad said while he parceled out some lasagna onto Ma’s plate, then his own. “You must be burning something like ten thousand calories a day, the way you’re going at it.”

  “More like five to six, Dad,” I said, waiting for Lloyd to pass me the second spatula. He was doing a deliberate slowdown.

  “Here,” Dad said, handing me the one he’d been using and giving Lloyd a look.

  I loaded my plate with a slab roughly the size of a chessboard, plus garlic bread and Caesar salad for six.

  “Oh, Arlo,” Ma huffed. “Really?”

  “You know I won’t waste a single bite, Ma.”

  She loved feeding us, so this was a bit of a conflict for her. Then she zeroed in on her main thought. “Come on, though, is all this really necessary? The crazy long hours, mornings, evenings, on top of practice. It seems a little excessive.”

  I had just taken a big bite of salad, followed by a big bite of bread, so my first move was to hold out pleading hands like I was disputing a penalty call. “Ma, I want to compete—”

  “Please, Arlo, close your mouth, chew and swallow first. I’ll still be here when you’re ready. You’re even starting to eat like a big brute.”

  Dad stepped in for me while I got a handle on my good manners.

  “Go easy, Emma,” he said, lightly punching her arm. “He’s just doing what he needs to do to be the best.”

  Lloyd gave a half snort, half cough, and Ma’s eyes sliced Dad a look that had him pulling that fist away as if she were made of hot lava.

  “I said,” I said, wanting to get this over with and return to my food in peace because it was so much more interesting than anything else on Earth right now, “that I want to compete. At every level, with everybody. That means outlifting, outrunning, outthinking, and outeating all the other guys, which will pay me back when I’m on the field.”

  I quickly popped some more of Ma’s fine cuisine into my mouth and gave a sincere moan of appreciation.

  “You have to agree, hon,” Dad said to her, starting to sound like my agent, “that if he is going to be on the field, you want him in peak physical condition. You probably want that more than anyone when you think about it.”

  This was making Ma tense. She held her lips too tight and got all eye-­shifty again with Dad. If Dad was going to be my agent, he’d have to play it cooler when he was pressing an advantage.

  “All this wasn’t necessary when Lloyd played,” Ma blurted. “And Lloyd was always in terrific shape.”

  The obvious answer, of course, was that I had bigger things in mind, literally and otherwise, than Lloyd ever had, and that I was going to work for them. We all stared at our plates, trying not to acknowledge that Lloyd was sitting there, an almost ghost, with Ma talking about him as though he wasn’t there.

  I found myself feeling sorry for him. And for that I hated both of us.

  “Well, as it happens,” Lloyd said loudly, “Arlo has invited me to join his little workout group.”

  “I did what?” I said, showing everybody the food in my big gaping manga mouth.

  “Arlo,” Ma chided.

  “Just the other day,” Lloyd said. “The morning when you were heading out early, and I had to remind you to use a glass for your juice . . .”

  “Jeez, Arlo,” Dad said, “again? No way I can drink that now.”

  I gave Lloyd a small sneer. The saintliness of the smile I got in return was like an end-zone touchdown dance only I could see.

  “Well . . . that’s nice,” Ma said, tripping on another conflict of her interests.

  “But I thought you didn’t want him getting all hulked up like me,” I said, now completely frustrated. “I thought Lloyd and his terrific shape were being held up as the better model?”

  “I wouldn’t hold—“ Dad started.

  “This is true,” Ma cut him off, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t do some training together. It’s been a long time since you two spent time with each other.” Ma was straining mightily to sound casual about it, but her eyes were pleading eyes, needy eyes, eyes I never want to have to see.

  “Please, Arlo,” the eyes were saying. “Please be there for your brother, who could really use it right now, your brother who is a Lost Soul.”

  “Of course,” I said to Ma, then turned to repeat it in Lloyd’s direction, “Of course. We’ve always been a team, and we always will be. My brother is welcome wherever I go.”

  He shot me an expert chilling grin, the kind that said he knew exactly what I thought about it all. Pretty powerful stuff for a lost soul.

  We were washing the dishes together when dinner was done. Meaning, Lloyd pawed around in the cupboards and freezer for something to satisfy his wicked sweet tooth, while I washed and repeatedly reminded him to finish clearing up and start drying.

  When he finally sidled up beside me and slapped the lasagna pan on the counter next to the sink, I asked him, “You don’t really want to come and work out with us, do you?”

  “Nah,” he said, like he’d been dying for me to ask.

  “So why the show?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Bored? Something to do? A sad cry for attention?”

  “What are you doing with your free time these days anyway?” It sure wasn’t homework, given how little time he spent at home in the evenings.

  He shrugged.

  “Does that mean you’re doing nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Does it mean you are doing something?”

  “I’ve got irons in a few fires,” he said with so much deliberate mystery it made me lose all interest.

  “I thought you were going to fix up your motorcycle? Now would seem to be the perfect time.”

  “Yeah,” he said, pushing off me abruptly.

  As he passed through the living room I could hear my father asking him where he was going.

  “Out,” he snapped, and the front door slammed shut. There was silence after that.

  Give Thanks

  It was my first Thanksgiving Day with meaningful football. It was Lloyd’s first without it.

  It was also the day Sandy would properly meet the whole family.

  Thanksgiving is football, after all. And Thanksgiving is family.

  “Are you sure about this?” I said to Ma when she first encouraged me to invite Sandy for the big day. I couldn’t remember our ever having anybody ov
er for any dinner before, never mind a big holiday do, so the possibilities for social calamity were pretty real.

  “Of course, of course,” she said, and I could see it right there on her face, her calculation face, which meant she was already adding special somethings to the menu and I would be leaning into a mighty gale if I tried to fight it. It was like it was her own personal Super Bowl Sunday.

  “Are you sure about this?” I said to Sandy after she made it clear that there was nothing stopping her from attending.

  “My dad always goes to his college’s Turkey Day game with his old buddies. And my mom compensates by volunteering at the soup kitchen, which she has to book like six months in advance because there are so many selfless do-­gooders trying to do all their good on the same day that there’s no room for you if you aren’t way prebooked. Which means I normally go to my sister’s house and spend the first half of the day babysitting her two kids while she and her husband cook the dinner and marinate themselves in red wine, and then I babysit my sister and her husband until their friends come over, and then I hide. So, sure, let’s give your people a shot.”

  Which made me think about my people.

  “You’ll be really spotlighted. Lloyd’s never brought a girl anywhere near the place. And, well, obviously, I’ve never—”

  “Strict household, I’m impressed. It’ll be an honor, then. I’ll try and make it an experience they will want to repeat.”

  Obviously, this was going ahead.

  “Let’s hope we all will,” I said.

  ***

  First order of business was the football. The dangerous stuff could wait.

  Ma was never going to attend. Dad always was, and Sandy always was.

  The wild card was, naturally, Lloyd. I figured he would want to be as far away from the scene as possible, but with Lloyd you never knew.

  There was a knock on the door to my room as I was finishing getting ready. It was Lloyd, which was a surprise since he considered knocking to be a sign of weakness.