Hit Count

by Chris Lynch

It went without saying that it was the only phone call he’d be making, and it was left to me to provide our folks with a carefully worded update on Lloyd’s progress.

  Police chases were way too tense now, so I flipped over to Animal Planet, where schools of fish shifting through coral reefs made a much better backdrop while I finished my food and prepared to sift through some facts.

  “Hey, how was the movie?” I said as my parents came through the door. I knew that I was already failing to set the right tone by being too keenly interested.

  “It was silly,” Ma said. “Have you heard from your brother?”

  No warm-­ups, then. Straight into the game.

  “I did,” I said. “He called, sounded kind of exhausted.”

  “Well, fair enough,” Dad said as the two of them came over and hovered above me where I sat. “I imagine that whole process is tough going.”

  “It is, Dad,” I said, happy for the assist. “That’s exactly how it sounded. And it’s going to spill over into a second day, obviously, which is why he isn’t here.”

  “What does that mean?” Ma asked intently. “Does that mean anything? Being kept for a second day—is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Are many people held over for a second day?”

  “Sounds pretty routine to me, Ma. I know there were other guys with him. He has a roommate, and everything.”

  “Oh,” she said, and her shoulders slid down slowly from where they had ratcheted up near her ears. “Well, I like the sound of that, anyway. Better than thinking of him being alone through a night like this.”

  It was hard now, and definitely going to get harder if I didn’t cut and run. I hated to be deceptive with them, though the way my dad was looking at me hinted that I might not have been completely successful there. No way could I give it to them unvarnished, and leaving it like this at least left the distant hope that Lloyd could pull it all together by tomorrow.

  “Anyway,” I said, standing up and stretching, “there is no third day no matter what. So by this time tomorrow we can all be here getting it from the horse’s mouth. Good night.”

  And a good night to the horse. Bring home a winner. Get it together, brother, please.

  ***

  It was hard getting to sleep as I thought about the possibilities, the odds, the fallout of what tomorrow could bring us.

  It wasn’t hard waking up. Because tomorrow brought it. Early and heavy. In the form of Lloyd himself.

  “This cannot be true!” I heard Dad bellow just before the wall of my room nearly caved in on top of me.

  The two of them roared and rumbled as I yanked open the door to find Lloyd and my father slugging it out right there in the hallway. Ma came flying out at the same time and screamed, “Arlo, do something! Make them stop!”

  The scene was as horrible as anything I had ever seen. They were in a kind of death clutch, choking and sticking short sharp jabs in each other’s face as Ma pulled tight fistfuls of hair on both sides of her head. I felt as small and big as it was possible to feel, like a little boy who wanted to run and hide and the big boy who needed to do something.

  I heard my involuntary bull bellow as I drove myself blindly into the two of them, smashed them into the far wall, and dumped them right on the floor. I stood over them, steaming as Ma sobbed in front of their bedroom door six feet away.

  “You see what you’re doing here?” I said when they looked up at me. I pointed to Ma. “I don’t care who you are, but if either one of you gets up and does not go to his own corner, I swear I will throw you out a window.”

  Dad got straight to his feet and, more out of embarrassment than out of any fear of me, took a brisk walk into the bedroom. Ma followed him and the door shut crisply behind her. Muffled but urgent discussion seeped out.

  As I stood there looking down at him, Lloyd fixed a cold stare on me. It was then that I realized the conk I had given my own head when we all hit the wall. It throbbed.

  “What did you do?” I asked him.

  He stuck out a hand for me to help him up. I did.

  Once on his feet he leaned forward, too close to me. He reeked of booze.

  “Nobody’s watching now, big man,” he said. “You gonna throw me out the fuckin’ window?”

  Even I couldn’t tell how much of my tone then was disgust and how much was pity. “Ah, Lloyd, man . . . ,” I said.

  He nodded, grinned, breathed extra poisonously right in my face, then stumbled toward his room.

  “Didn’t think so, big man,” he said, and slammed the door hard.

  There wasn’t much chance of my going back to sleep after that, so I returned to my room and did some light working out, just to steady myself as much as possible.

  He had completely blown it now. If he just showed up, just went through whatever tests they wanted to run him through, no matter what they concluded, it would have to be a better result than this. Now what have we got? Now where could he go?

  I realized when I heard my parents start bumping around in the kitchen that my light workout with the push-­ups and medicine ball routine had gone beyond light. I was breathing too hard and breaking a sweat. I wiped my face, threw on a robe, and went out to them.

  The two of them were sitting down over coffee and bagels. Dad had a couple of welts on his face and Ma’s eyes looked hay-­feverish, but otherwise they looked like people who could walk into their offices without dragging an ugly home story in with them.

  I got myself orange juice from the fridge and a glass from the cabinet.

  “You going to throw him out?” I said as my father scowled down into his cup.

  “He has nowhere to go,” Ma said, staring at him. “He was very upset.”

  “He was very drunk,” Dad said.

  “If you hadn’t confronted him. If you just could have let it go, just until later when we could have—”

  “What, Emma? Could have what, later?”

  “He needs to find something. That’s all. He was counting on the army, and so this was devastating for him. He needs time. He needs to find something.”

  Dad got up abruptly, left his half-­finished breakfast on the table, which never happened.

  “Then he’d better find it soon,” he said, then collected his jacket from the back of his chair and marched out.

  “He’ll be fine,” Ma said, reaching across and patting my arm before taking her plate to the sink.

  “I know he will,” I said. We both knew we did not mean Lloyd.

  Nobody had the answer to Lloyd. The question alone, however, could tear all of us down if we let it.

  I, for one, would not let it. The only thing I knew how to do for sure was to take care of Arlo.

  Put your head down, dip that shoulder, and run hard, Arlo.

  You Have to Earn It

  HIT LIST

  Pay your rookie dues. Suck it up, shut your mouth, move on. Never take it again.

  ***

  There is a reason why there is a barrier between the varsity and junior varsity teams. If it was just about moving from freshman to sophomore to junior to senior teams, then Lloyd would have eventually made the top team and maybe even gone to college—and who knows where he would be now. No, it’s more. It’s about development and skill and dedication and ultimately producing the maximum football that results in the awesomeness you see weekly in NFL games. And when you make varsity, you realize it’s a lot more.

  Almost as soon as I hit the field, more was what I got.

  Bam-­shazam! I got slammed from down low, the guy coming up under my armpit and shoving me up, over sideways, and with a huge crunch, driving me right into the turf.

  “Yo, Rook,” said the guy standing over me, hands on his hips while I stayed flat on my back where he’d put me, a giant of a left guard and offensive cocaptain named Arsenault. He was also a senior, and while the varsity was theoretically all one team, the seniors were very keen for you to know they were seniors. “That nose for the ball stuff you did last year is all well and good, but
it’s only gonna get you so far. In fact, it’s not gonna get you very far at all if you just have your eyes on the runner and not his blockers. Vision is gonna matter more than your nose. See what I’m sayin’?”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Excellent. And your nose is bleeding.”

  As Arsenault walked away I reached up to my nose, saw the blood all over my fingers, and started laughing.

  “What, do ya like it down there or somethin’, Rook?” said Stopes, the big receiver and big senior. He looked like he was going to do the sportsmanship thing and offer me a hand up. But he stepped right over me. “Get your ass up, for God’s sake, Rook. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Rook was my name. There were a few other new players, but I seemed to absorb a lot more of the focused rookie treatment than anyone. I was clued in some by a junior named Galvin, who told me on the first day, “Your rep says you’re somebody to watch.”

  “Yeah?” I said, overly pleased to have an unfamiliar upperclassman taking me aside, and even more thrilled to have a rep of any kind.

  “Yeah. So prepare to be watched.”

  That last part didn’t sound entirely like friendly mentoring. And since Galvin played inside linebacker like me and I was his backup and potential rival for the job, it probably wasn’t.

  It was also not inaccurate. I was watched mercilessly, daily. Staying on my feet and in one piece the first week was a constant struggle. My nose probably did not stop bleeding for more than twenty minutes at a time, and for certain my head never stopped hurting. I couldn’t even take the time to see how Dinos was doing. The second week was when they upped the challenges, having tenderized my meat. I took my beatings at linebacker, but my field vision was getting better. I got my legs knocked from under me with a wicked chop block, but then I didn’t. I made one interception that caught me totally by surprise when the quarterback threw a perfect ball, right to me, as if I were the intended receiver. And since there was no actual receiver anywhere near, maybe I was. Although I was brought down as quickly and brutally as a wildebeest by a pack of high school lions that was so big it must have also included several who were supposed to be on my side. Senior lions, naturally.

  And then there was that one memorable play, in case I was getting too cocky. Trying some snaps at the lineman, I was just going for it, all out, driving ahead and being physical as the only reliable alternative to absolutely anything. But before I could reach my man, he reached me, I got a slap across the side of my head that was so hard it sounded like a great big church bell, and felt like he had used a pipe. I went down sideways, landed on all fours, and stayed there for several seconds watching that bright nose blood forming a red motivational pool on the ground below me.

  I was pretty sure the head slap had been illegal for a long time. I wasn’t going to complain about anything, but when I got to my feet I took a look over to the sideline to see if this was registering at all. Standing there with his arms folded, Coach Fisk was staring right at me, motionless, silent, just watching.

  Okay, then.

  Bit by bit, smash by smash, I found I could take it. Then, take it just fine. Then, the best part, came the rush. There was a thrill, hidden behind the first several layers of combat, like a video game quest, until you got to what had to be called the true violence, and once I got there I loved the true violence.

  And I learned.

  By the end of the second week, I played as if I invented the linebacker position. My nose for the ball was enhanced greatly by my improved field vision, and even more by my preparedness for a whole new level of tough.

  The following week I played almost half the plays. I made more than four tackles, then I stopped counting. I got several head slaps, and they weren’t the nosebleed kind. Galvin stopped talking to me entirely.

  My name was still Rook. But it sounded different now.

  Starlo

  “Everyone’s calling him Starlo now,” Dinos said as he and Jenna and Sandy and I left the crap movie halfway through.

  “No, everyone is not calling me that.”

  “Okay, true. Galvin’s in a couple of my classes and he mostly calls you Starhole.”

  “Does he?” I said as the girls laughed out loud.

  “Oh yeah. But don’t worry, to everyone else, you’re Starlo. Or at least you will be by the time I get finished spreading it.”

  “Don’t spread it, Dinos.”

  It looked as if the girls were one couple and the guys were another. They were “thick as thieves,” as my mother would say, strolling arm in arm ahead of us and appearing to find everything wildly comical.

  “Do spread it, Dinos,” Jenna called back to us. “It’s great.”

  “Yeah,” Sandy called, “spread it, and we’ll help.”

  I turned to my good pal and teammate. “Happy now?” I said.

  “I’m a little happy. But I’ll be a lot happy when we eventually trademark it and surf a pile of money together off your own private island.”

  I shook my head. “Man, you do think big, don’tcha?”

  “So do you, boy, so don’t think you’re fooling anybody.”

  “Pit stop?” Jenna called, hauling Sandy diagonally across wide Washington Street as she did.

  We followed them to the baseball field, sitting all dusky and deserted the way a baseball field should at this time of day at this time of year.

  “Why are we doing this?” I asked as we walked past the backstop to the bench on the first base side. The lights from the street reached just enough to make us visible to one another.

  “I told you,” Jenna answered, “for a pit stop.” Her face briefly became more illuminated than the rest of her as she click-flicked a Bic and lit up. She took a big inhale, then passed the joint to Sandy.

  I watched in not quite amazement as Sandy inhaled and passed on to Dinos. I continued staring at her until it became too much for her and she spluttered out a little storm of smoke and laughter straight my way.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

  “I don’t, mostly,” she answered. “Just for the odd laugh. Nantucket could get really boring sometimes.”

  “Nantucket?” I snapped, making the girls burst out all over the place.

  Dinos laughed, too, but in a slightly more sympathetic way. He exhaled, and put a big paw on my shoulder.

  “I do not want that, thank you,” I said.

  He handed the joint back to Jenna. “I wasn’t offering it to you, Grandma, relax. Anyway, I wouldn’t let you have it even if you did want it. Your body is a temple.”

  “You’re on the team, too. What’s your body, then?”

  “Mine’s a frat house. I hardly even play. C’mon, man, you’ve seen it. A guy like me, an upperclassman with no remaining untapped potential is just another big body filling out the roster. I’d have to work ten times harder than you just to be mediocre, and that ain’t what senior year’s about in my book. You, however, are an investment. Everybody here, and the children of everybody here, is going to be counting on you financially for many years to come. So, no fun for you. I’ll see to that.”

  “Thanks, pal.” I wasn’t kidding.

  Jenna shook her head and said sympathetically to Sandy, “My no-­neck boyfriend might not be a star, but at least he knows how to loosen up.”

  Sandy sighed and shrugged. “What can I do? Maybe we should get him to smoke.”

  “Hey, my neck is hungry,” Dinos said. “Where should we go?”

  “Home, to bed,” I said, and started walking back to the street.

  A few seconds later Sandy caught up and took my hand.

  “Hey, that was a joke, you know,” she said, “I do wish you wouldn’t be so serious.”

  “Maybe I should smoke.”

  She yanked on my arm like she was trying to ring a church bell really hard. “Grrr,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, “less serious. I’m working on it.”

  We walked along in silence for a bit.

&nb
sp; “Are you bothered that I smoked there?”

  “There, no.” I said. “Ask me if I’m bothered that you smoked on Nantucket.”

  She sighed. “Are you bothered that I smoked on Nantucket?”

  “Pffft,” I said as casually as I could fake. “Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”

  “Um, because you just—”

  “Who was there, when you smoked? How much did you smoke? How often? What were you wearing? Who was there?”

  “Ahhhh,” she said, wrapping her arms around my arm now instead of tugging on it. “That’s more like it. I was wondering where you were for a minute there.”

  She pressed into me and I pressed back, and we walked home that way and mostly quiet, secure in my sappiness.

  We sat for a while on Sandy’s stoop, huddling happy against the chilly breeze coming up.

  It was becoming one of my favorite spots anywhere, that stoop. The only things that mattered to me at that point were becoming a better football player and being with Sandy, and neither of those things was helped by spending more time at my house.

  At home I was like a watchdog. Even when I was closed off in my room, I couldn’t help tuning in to all the sounds and silences of the place, trying to get a read on what was coming next. The silences were mostly Dad’s. The sounds were mostly Ma’s as she tried to help Lloyd somehow, and Lloyd’s as he tried not to be helped. And I needed to do all this while remaining in the shadows. Since he found out I made varsity, it seemed like he felt the need to take me on, challenge me every time he saw me.

  “The only upside,” I told Sandy, “is that Ma’s so wrapped up in keeping my brother from falling completely through the cracks, she’s stopped fretting about me getting hurt.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Less stress between the two of you at least. For now.”

  “Ha,” I laughed. “Yeah, there’s plenty stress enough to go around. For now. She’ll be back, though. Making up for lost time, with The File.”

  “Hnn,” Sandy said in a funny way.

  “What?” I said.

  “Dinos is right, right? How this is becoming a big deal. How you are becoming a big deal.”