Stick

by Michael Harmon

  He folded the rest of his burrito up neatly, placed it in the plastic bag our food came in, and held it out to me. “You want the rest? I’d better go.”

  I took it, studying his face. He opened the door, got out, and walked away, and as I watched him go, my appetite disappeared with him.

  When I got home, my dad was still snoring in the living room. I looked at the keys in my hand, trying to decide what I should do with them. Fear. Fear to do the right thing. I realized then that I was petrified of my father. Then I thought of Preston, and with a twinge of guilt I realized I was jealous of his relationship with his father. Even if he was dead.

  I went to bed, and I decided right then I wouldn’t steal from myself anymore.

  I left early, before he woke up, and drove to school. Word was finally all the way out that I’d quit. No, I hadn’t just quit—I’d ruined the team. I was single-handedly responsible for life on the planet ending. Three guys told me Killinger was going to kick my ass at some point, and I took it for what it was.

  Serious.

  After school, I walked across the grounds toward the gym. The longest walk of my life. I carried my helmet under one arm, my uniform under the other, and my heart in my throat. I’d waited in my car, thinking about it for a good couple of hours. Turning in the red-and-white uniform, I knew, was the last and final straw. There’d be no going back.

  As I got closer to the doors, Lance Killinger and Tilly Peterson came out. My stomach shriveled.

  They both stopped when they saw me. There were no smiles. I kept walking, my eyes straight ahead, my chin up. I had quit for a reason, it was a good reason, and I wasn’t going to be afraid of it. I also knew what would happen now, which was me getting my face beaten inside out. I kept my eyes straight forward, and as I passed them, Killinger sidestepped, shoulder-checking me into Tilly. When I hit Tilly, he shoved me back in the only way Tilly knew how. Hard.

  My ass hit the ground, my helmet skittering away as I braced against the fall. Both guys stood over me in the deserted courtyard. Killinger smiled. “You always thought you were better than everybody else. Now we’ll see.”

  “You’re gonna be my bitch for the rest of the year,” Tilly said.

  I looked around, and through the glass doors of the gym, I saw Coach. He was standing there, watching. He did nothing. I reached for my helmet, and Killinger kicked my hand away. “You don’t deserve it, man. You don’t deserve those colors.” He ripped the uniform from me and held it up. “Number seven. The great Stick Patterson,” he said, then spit on it. Tilly laughed.

  The next thing I knew, a slender arm reached down from over my shoulder. I turned my head, and Preston bent next to me, offering his hand.

  Tilly and Killinger stared at the kid like he was insane. They’d been intent on me and hadn’t seen him walk around the corner. I shook my head. “No. Go.” One person getting his ass kicked was always better than two, and at least I could fight back.

  Killinger laughed. “Look at this. Patterson has a new friend. Little faggot boy. You like eggs, faggot boy?”

  Preston ignored them. He stared at me, and I saw complete and absolute fear in his eyes, which surprised me. In an instant, I understood everything he’d said the night before. About being afraid to do the right thing. I took his hand. He helped me up.

  Tilly laughed. “Looks like you got some backup, Stick.”

  “No. Just you two and me. He stays out of it.”

  Preston picked up my helmet.

  Killinger held his hand out. “Give it here, kid.”

  Preston stood, pale and silent, unmoving, his big eyes on Killinger.

  “You want more than eggs this time, you fucking fag?” he said, stepping closer to Preston. They stared each other down for a few seconds, and Killinger grabbed Preston’s arm.

  Then it happened.

  Preston swung the helmet with all his might, nailing Killinger square on the cheek. Blood sprayed. But it didn’t stop there. He was like a tornado, arms flailing, the helmet a blur as he went after the falling Killinger.

  As Killinger fell, Tilly rushed in and wrapped his arms around Preston, lifting him like a child. Preston was screaming. No, not just screaming, but from the bottom of his soul yelling bloody murder.

  Skinny arms swinging, legs kicking, body thrashing in Tilly’s huge arms, Preston fought uncontrollably, beating both Tilly and himself with the helmet. The helmet caught Tilly square in the face, and blood gushed from his nose. Preston, with spittle and slobber flying from his mouth like he was possessed by a spastic demon, lowered his chin and sank his teeth into Tilly’s forearm, his yells turning to growls as he gnashed his teeth.

  Tilly tried to control him, squeezing him tighter, but Preston was an animal, gnawing on his arm, hitting and kicking even harder. Tilly let out a painful grunt, lifted him higher, and body-slammed him to the ground.

  It all happened so fast, I couldn’t do anything, and I blinked when Preston’s body hit the concrete. I heard the hollow thud when his skull hit. This didn’t happen. People didn’t do this. I’d never seen a situation so out of control.

  The screaming stopped with the impact, and Preston lay still. Tilly, in a rage, leaned down, drawing back a giant fist to punch his head. I leaped at him, winding back and landing a massive haymaker against the side of his face.

  I thought for sure I’d knock him out, but Tilly only roared in pain, backing off and holding his cheek. “Kid’s fucking mental, man! Look at my arm!” He gaped, holding it up and watching the blood stream down.

  I stood over Preston, staring at both Killinger and Tilly. Killinger looked like he was in shock, which he should have been. A hundred-and-seventeen-pound fifteen-year-old kid had just beat the shit out of both of them. “Leave, Lance. Get out of here.”

  And they did, with Tilly pointing at me and telling me I was finished, and that he’d finish me himself. Then it was over. I glanced through the gym doors just in time to see Coach disappear from sight. No other teacher had seen a thing.

  Preston regained consciousness. He lay on his side in a fetal position, his face buried in his arms, his body heaving. He was talking to himself quietly through his sobs and moans, and the only thing I could understand was him mumbling “Sorry” over and over again.

  I knelt down next to him, hoping to God he was all right. Tilly had slammed him hard. Too hard. “Hey, you okay?”

  He didn’t answer me. He was still heaving, still talking to himself, almost as if he was dreaming, still curled up like a wounded animal. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he flinched. “Don’t touch me. Never touch me,” he rasped.

  I moved back, holding my hands up, palms toward him. “Preston, it’s okay. It’s fine. It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  His whole body trembled. His face was smeared with blood and snot. He looked at me, those impenetrable eyes so deep and full of mystery and misery and sadness. He sat up, wrapping his arms around his chest. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I promise I won’t. Are you okay?”

  His eyes were closed. His chin quivered, and he clenched his teeth, trying to calm the sobs coursing through him. “Leave me alone. I’m supposed to be alone, so leave me alone.”

  I didn’t budge. For all I knew he’d cracked his skull. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  He blinked his eyes open, then got to his feet. “I’m supposed to be alone, Brett. Don’t you understand that?” Then he got up and ran, his legs wobbly, his awkward body somehow not falling.

  I knocked on the office door five minutes later, and in a moment, Coach opened it. I held my uniform, with Killinger’s spit on the jersey, and my helmet, streaked with drying blood. He looked at them, then at me, his face a rock. “You lost us that game, Brett.”

  “You watched the whole thing.”

  “You’ve let so many people down,” he said. “I thought you were better than that.” It was as if he hadn’t just witnessed a kid getting slammed into the ground hard enough to knock his br
ains out.

  My stomach turned. How could I have ever listened to him? Respected him? How could I have ever believed that he was someone to look up to? “Tilly could have killed him.”

  If there was an emotion behind his face, God himself couldn’t have dragged it out.

  “You don’t care, do you? It’s all about your game, and whoever doesn’t play doesn’t matter, huh? All about winning, no matter what you do to people.” I dropped my helmet. It bounced on the floor, echoing through the empty gym.

  His voice was low, full of gravel. “Don’t quit, Brett. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  A wave of revulsion shuddered through me as Preston’s head hitting the concrete flashed through my mind. “You think I’d play for you? You’re a shitty human being,” I said, and then I flung the uniform at him.

  He flinched, raising his hands to catch it.

  I glared at him. “You suck. And you know what? You’re nothing but a third-rate coach who has to play dirty to win.”

  My dad had called me four times during the day, leaving messages. The first two were threats about the car; then it turned to “I want to talk”; the last was nothing but him pleading for me to rethink quitting the team. I didn’t call him back.

  After leaving the gym, I headed to the parking lot. In the late-afternoon sun, my rear window glistened and sparkled, the glass spiderwebbed. A brick lay embedded in it. As I stared, I noticed the driver’s door. Somebody had keyed it with a big X. A parting gift from Killinger and Tilly, no doubt.

  It took me ten minutes to take out the broken glass. Thousands of brilliant pebbles covered my backseat. I left the brick in the parking lot and headed to Preston’s place.

  When I reached the lobby, I buzzed the apartment, and Preston’s mom’s voice came through the tinny intercom. “Yes?”

  “It’s Brett. Preston’s friend.”

  “I’ll be down in a moment. Please wait.”

  I stared at the walls until the elevator dinged, and when the doors opened, Preston’s mom came out. She was dressed like she was going out for the night. Short skirt, cleavage showing, hair curled, makeup done. Her face, however, didn’t look happy.

  Her eyes were blue, and I noticed they were shaped like Preston’s. She nodded, smiled briefly, and pursed her lips. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking—”

  She cut in. “What is going on with Preston, Brett?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Is he here?”

  “Yes, he’s here. He came home with a knot the size of a golf ball on the side of his head, he’s limping, and he won’t tell me anything. For the last three months he’s come home with bruises and cuts and black eyes, and he won’t say a thing.”

  I wondered what it was like to have a mom. She was pissed, all right, but I could see in her expression that she was worried, too. “Is he okay?”

  “Brett, please. He won’t talk to me. He won’t say anything. Ever.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, squeezing herself. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Underwood. Can I see him?”

  “I’m sorry. He explicitly told me that he didn’t want to see you.” Her lips tightened, and she narrowed her eyes. “Did you do that to him? Did you hit him?”

  “No. A guy at school did.” The last thing I wanted was to get into this. Rule number one when your friends’ parents grilled you was to find a way to get off the grill. “It’s okay, though. They’re not after him or anything. I swear. Just a fight.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “They?”

  Ugh. Why did I have to screw everything up?“No, I mean him. The guy. I promise.”

  Just then, the last person I ever thought would save my life walked into the lobby. Tom. Good old Mr. Boyfriend. He had his hair all done up and gelled like a guy twenty years younger, complete with Ray-Ban sunglasses resting on top. He was dressed in a Hangman Valley Golf Club polo shirt and wore a pair of tan pants. The glasses alone probably cost three hundred bucks, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a two-bit ambulance chaser with a loud mouth. He looked at me and grinned. “Hey! Stick! How’s the arm?” he said, slapping me on the shoulder like we’d known each other longer than ten minutes.

  “Just fine, sir.”

  He winked knowingly. “I put two thousand on the team. Thanks for the heads-up, kid.”

  I nodded, smiling inside. “Great,” I said, then turned to Preston’s mom. “Is he okay?” I asked again.

  Tom frowned, but it wasn’t a frown of concern. Every second I knew the guy convinced me that God occasionally borrowed from the defective-parts bin when he made people. “Let me guess. Preston.”

  Preston’s mom swallowed. “Tom, tonight isn’t a good night. Preston isn’t doing well.”

  “I hope this is some kind of joke, because everybody who’s somebody in this city is going to be at this fund-raiser, Diane. It’s important.”

  “Preston was beaten up today at school, Tom.”

  He grimaced. “Always him. Always the kid. I said this was important.”

  Word hadn’t reached the papers that the star receiver had quit the star team, and I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Underwood? I’m sorry, but I should leave.” I glanced at Tom, who still pouted, and I gave him my best smile. “You going to be at the game this week?”

  “Yeah, of course. Like I said, I’m betting big on you.”

  I nodded knowingly. “We’re playing Mead. I heard something, too.”

  He perked up. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Their quarterback messed up his rotator cuff waterskiing yesterday after school. He can’t throw.”

  Tom, with the smell of easy money lingering in his head like a noxious green cloud, clapped his hands. “Golden! I’ll up it another thousand.” He slapped my back. “Game on, Stick. You’re making me money, boy, and this is how it’s played!”

  I thought about Preston sitting upstairs, no doubt with a raging headache, and I laughed. “You got it, sir.”

  You never do anything dangerous, do you?

  Those words rattled around in my head like numbers in a bingo cage. Yeah, right, I thought as my stomach clenched and adrenaline flushed through me. I figured for whatever I hadn’t done for the last eighteen years, this was making up for it. Even through my fear, a certain giddiness overcame me, an exhilaration I hadn’t felt before.

  This was crazy.

  After leaving Preston’s mom and her boyfriend arguing in the lobby, I sat in the parking lot, staring at the gigantic building. Fifteen minutes later, I watched as Mrs. Underwood’s pristine BMW drove from the garage. Tom had won the battle, it looked like. I figured he always got his way, but I also imagined him sitting in the bleachers as the team streamed onto the field this Friday. The look of concern. Then confusion. Then anger when he didn’t see me. Then rage when he saw Mead’s first-string quarterback take the field. I giggled like a little girl thinking about it.

  Now, a half hour later, with the evening breeze rippling through my hair, I looked down. All the way down. On my hands and knees, I peered over the edge of the roof of Preston’s building and vertigo swept through me. My eyes swam. I hated heights.

  Closing my eyes, I backed away and stood, looking over the twinkling lights of Spokane. A notch of the moon was cresting Brown’s Mountain to the east, rising slowly. I could hear the rush of the falls far below, and my eyes were drawn to the headlights, small and distant, streaming along the freeway.

  Once again I got on my hands and knees and crept to the spot right above the balcony that was outside Preston’s room. Insane. I was insane. I could have buzzed his place after his mom and Tom left, but I didn’t. I’d entered the password for the garage and taken the massive lift up to the top floor.

  I didn’t knock on the door that led into the apartment. Instead, I found the maintenance door and the stairs that led to the roof.

  You never do anything dangerous, do you?

  The world below me spun, and I
laughed. Trust it. Trust what was right. I had no idea why I was doing this, but there was a reason, and I was sure it was the right reason.

  Among the antennas, air-conditioning units, and other apparatus on the roof, there was a large satellite dish on the south side. Around it, and running along the edge of the roof, were steel bars and tubes that fastened the dish to the building. Fifteen feet below that, Preston’s balcony laughed at me. I dare you to do it.

  I figured that if I slung myself over the edge while gripping the bars, I could dangle a good eight feet down. That left seven feet of flight—or vertical plummet—to his balcony. Every synapse in my body screamed at me to leave. To go knock on his door like a normal human being. Stick Patterson didn’t do anything that risked his career as a football player. You never do anything dangerous, do you? No, I thought. I never do.

  I do what I’m told, and I do it without thinking.

  No snowboarding, no waterskiing, no dirt bike riding, no diving off the bridge at Post Falls. My dad had actually compiled a list of things I couldn’t do. Yellowed with years, it was still posted on the refrigerator. Last year, he’d even nixed plans I had to go play Frisbee golf with my friends the day before a game.

  He hadn’t, however, written that I couldn’t hang over the edge of a nineteen-story building and free-fall to a balcony. Nope. Not on the list. He’d missed that one.

  Taking a deep breath, I grasped the bar and twisted sideways, putting my first leg down over the edge. There was no reason to do this. I could have buzzed him. I could have knocked. I could have gone home to face my dad. Preston wasn’t in danger. I could talk to him tomorrow. Hunt him down, if need be. But something inside of me said that I had to do this. That he needed it. That he needed me to prove something I didn’t quite understand. Or maybe that I needed this.

  My whole body tight with fear, my heart pounding, I refused to look at anything but the balcony. As I slung my other leg over the bar, every muscle screamed, and my eyes shifted sideways, to the sparkling lights of the city. You stupid idiot. Now you’ve done it.