Playing The Game

by Jeff Shelby

  “I don't wanna repeat it,” I said. “And it doesn't matter. It was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry.”

  “Do you and the other boy have a history?”

  “No.”

  She studied me for a moment, like I might spill my guts to her if she looked at me long enough. I kept my mouth closed and my guts stayed put.

  “I've heard good things about you from your teachers and your coaches, Brady,” she finally said. “So I'm somewhat surprised to see you here.”

  I wondered exactly what she'd heard.

  “Do I have your assurance that this won't happen again?” she asked.

  I had no idea. I was pretty sure that if Buchanan opened his mouth again, I wouldn't think twice about dumping him on his ass. But I knew that's not what she wanted to hear.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Won't happen again.”

  She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a pink notepad. She scribbled on it, tore off the top sheet, and slid it across the desk to me. “I'm giving you a single detention for this afternoon and we'll chalk this up to having a bad day. Understood?”

  I reached for the pink slip. “Understood.”

  She'd written me a pass to go to my next class, told me where to find the detention room at the end of the day, and that's how I ended up in detention for the first time in seventeen years.

  I checked in with the teacher in charge of the room. He barely glanced at me, took the pink slip, and waved a hand for me to take a seat. After the last bell rang, he told us to stay off our phones and that we could either read or do homework, but we couldn't sleep. The room was a mishmash of students—boys, girls, big, small, dressed in black, dressed not in black, nearly all of them ambivalent about being there. Most of them didn't seem to mind being stuck there and most had a book open on their desktop and looked like they were half-heartedly attempting to do some work.

  I was in a desk at the back of the room, not to hide, but so I could stretch my legs out. I pulled out a couple of my books and worked through some of my math homework and then read a chapter of Into The Wild for English. I closed up the book and glanced at the clock when I realized the kid across the row was looking at me.

  “You tipped over Buchanan?” he whispered.

  I shrugged.

  “Everyone's talking about it,” he said.

  I shrugged again.

  The kid glanced over his shoulder at our detention supervisor, who still hadn't looked up from his desk. He turned back to me. “You're on the basketball team, though. I don't get it.”

  I didn't say anything.

  “They pull this shit every year,” he said. “Weren't you in on it?”

  Every year.

  “No.”

  He raised an eyebrow and the small silver hoop in his brow bobbed up and down. “Derek was in my last period.”

  My stomach churned. “So?”

  “He said everybody must be getting it wrong,” he explained. “That you wouldn't be defending some slutbag like that.”

  I didn't say anything.

  He chewed on his lip for a moment, then lifted his chin. “So were you?”

  I stacked my book on top of my math book and looked at the clock. One more minute in detention.

  I looked at the kid. “No.”

  He raised the eyebrow and the hoop again. “No?”

  “I wasn't defending some slutbag,” I told him. “I was defending Amy.”

  THIRTY FOUR

  The late bell rang and I took my time packing up my stuff so I could be the last one out of the room. The kid with the eyebrow ring laughed and shook his head when I’d answered him, like I was setting the date for my own funeral or something. I didn't want to walk out with anyone else who might have a few more questions for me. I made my way to the front of the room. The detention guy still never looked up, and I wondered what would've happened if I hadn't shown up.

  I pushed open the door and Amy Mitchell was leaning against the wall on the other side of the hallway, her hands wrapped tightly around the straps of her backpack. She was staring at the ground, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

  She looked up when I walked out and pushed herself off the wall.

  I let the door close behind me.

  She glanced down the hallway in both directions. We were alone.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she asked.

  “Uh, leaving detention,” I said.

  She made a face at me, like I'd lit a stink bomb under her nose. “No shit. I mean what the fuck was that in class?”

  “With Buchanan?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shrugged. I wasn't sure what she was looking for.

  “And why the hell were you riding by my house yesterday?” she asked, squinting at me. “Stalk much?”

  “I told you why,” I said lamely. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “You rode by twice.”

  “You saw me the first time?”

  “Hence the twice, genius.”

  I stubbed the top of my shoe against the concrete. “I just...I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “But why, really?” she demanded, taking a step toward me. “Did your asshole buddies put you up to it? Tell you to go check on the chick they gang banged?”

  I took a step back. “No.”

  “Are you trying to make it worse for me?” she asked, her eyes like flames. “Or are you trying to taunt me? What the fuck are you doing, Brady?”

  I took a second to catch my breath. I hadn't been expecting to see her outside of detention, but I sure as hell hadn't expected her to attack me the second I walked out.

  “I didn't know what happened at the party,” I said. “I didn't know about it.”

  “So now what? Now you're just going to draw as much attention to me as possible? So you dump that asshole Buchanan on his face?” she asked, her face scrunched up with irritation. “You think that's gonna help me? Really?”

  I wasn't sure how all of a sudden I'd become the bad guy, but I didn't like it, and I didn't like that she was just firing questions at me without letting me answer.

  “He was being a dick,” I said. “I didn't like it.”

  “He wasn't being a dick to you, was he? It's my problem. I'm the one that has to deal with it.”

  “So what are you gonna do, then?” I asked.

  “About Buchanan?” she asked, incredulous. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. Because trust me, there are a lot worse things being said about me.”

  “No,” I said. “About what happened at the party.”

  She stared at me for a long time, and there was a moment where so much anger flashed through her eyes that I thought she was going to attack me. Like, literally claw my eyes out and try to take me to the ground.

  “Don't worry,” she finally said. “I won't fuck up your precious basketball team.”

  “That's not what I mean, Amy. Come on.”

  “It's not?” she said, widening her eyes in fake surprise. “Really? You aren't worried that I'll go to the cops and tell them exactly what all of you did and fuck up your entire lives? That hasn't crossed your mind at all?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Because I didn't do anything. I wouldn't have done anything. And I didn't know that Cameron told you I was upstairs until this morning.”

  She started to say something, but then stopped. I'd clearly caught her off guard.

  And she'd clearly thought I was a part of what had happened to her.

  “I didn't do anything,” I said again, tugging on the straps of my backpack. “I sat and waited for you outside at Ty's party. Because I like you. And then I went looking for you and Cam told me you went upstairs with Derek. She lied to both of us.” I shook my head. “But I didn't know that until this morning.”

  She didn't say anything and I took a deep breath, then slowly expelled it. “I'm not worried about the basketball team. I'm worried about you.”

  She stood there looking at me and I had no idea what sh
e was thinking. I didn't know if she believed me or wanted to punch me or what. But I wasn't going to just let her think I was a part of something so awful. Maybe she didn't want me to do anything about it, but that didn't mean she got to include me in it.

  I slid my bag off my shoulder and unzipped the front pocket. I pulled out a CD in a blue envelope and held it out to her. “Here.”

  “What the hell is that?” she asked, frowning at it. “Jesus. Is that—”?

  “It's music,” I said. “It's just music.”

  She eyed it in my hand. “For me? Why are you giving it to me?”

  “Remember how you asked what I listened to? The night of the party…when you came back, we were gonna talk about music. When things get fucked up for me, I listen to music. And I'm not saying it's the same thing.” I’d never experienced anything like what she was going through, and we both knew it. I sighed. “Look, I swear it's just music.”

  She hesitated, then took it from me. She looked at the disc through the clear cellophane in the middle of the square envelope. She shook her head, irritated, then stuck it in the front pocket of her sweatshirt.

  “Stop worrying about me,” she finally said. “You can't help me.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She pulled the hood over her head. “Because you're one of them. And that isn't changing.”

  THIRTY FIVE

  “Mickelson!” Coach Raymond yelled from his office. “Get in here.”

  I'd watched Amy leave and felt helpless. She was right. I was one of them. But I didn't see why that meant I couldn't help her, or just be her friend or whatever she needed. Yes, I played basketball with them, but that didn't mean I was like them, and I didn't like that was how she thought of me. It was probably how everyone thought of me, though. One of them. As I walked into the main locker room and Coach called me over, it didn't feel very good to be one of them.

  I stuck my head in the doorway. “Yeah, Coach?”

  He pointed to the folding chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.”

  I scrunched myself into the chair. The office was a small square room filled with a metal desk, a couple of filing cabinets, and an NBA calendar pinned to the wall. Coach looked like he was wedged in behind the desk.

  He folded his hands over his chest and leaned back. “You had some trouble this afternoon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Care to tell me what went on?”

  “A kid was mouthing off to someone else. I thought it was rude. I pushed him over. Shouldn't have done it and I'm sorry.”

  He stared at me over the desk. “You went to detention?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded. “Alright. I trust this is a one-time thing and I won't be getting any more calls from the vice principal about you?”

  He wanted to hear the same thing the vice principal wanted to hear. “Yes, sir. It won't happen again.”

  “I expect this kind of thing from some of your teammates, but not you,” he said, trying to look disappointed. “So let's make sure this is it.”

  He was like a really bad caricature of a coach. He wasn't a bad guy, but I didn't think anyone really respected him and I sure didn't fear him. I wanted him to say something original, just once.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Can I go change now?”

  “In one minute,” he said, holding up an index finger. “There's one more thing.”

  I sat there, waiting.

  He leaned forward and folded his hands on the desktop. His golf shirt with the school logo strained against his chest. “The game on Friday night. It's come to my attention that there will be a few scouts in attendance. Specifically to watch you.”

  My stomach did a little flip-flop. “Okay.”

  “I'm not sure from what schools yet, but I've had a bunch of phone calls,” he said. “So the word is out on you.”

  “I've, um, gotten letters,” I said. “At home.”

  He nodded. “I'm sure. Probably more to come, assuming you continue playing well and hit the summer circuit.”

  The summer circuit. I was pretty sure no one had called it that for about thirty years. It was camps and traveling teams and clinics, and they were hosted by Nike and Adidas and Under Armour. There was no circuit. But whatever.

  “Here's my point,” he said, frowning. “You need to stay on task. Don't do more than you need to. Play within our offense. Don't go showing off.” He paused. “You need to play like you don't even know they're there.”

  Which would've been really easy if he hadn't made a point of telling me they were going to be there.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Just play the game,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “Do what you've been doing. And trust your teammates.”

  I thought about what Derek had told me. About the rumors circulating through the school. About the picture. About what was being said about Amy. And about me.

  Trust your teammates.

  Easier said than done.

  THIRTY SIX

  “How was detention?” Derek asked.

  We were in the locker room after practice. I'd changed quickly after talking with Coach and hustled out to the gym. I charged through practice, running at full speed, jumping as high as I could, doing everything I could to work the anxiety out of my muscles. I was drenched in sweat at the end, and I was the last one dragging my butt into the locker room.

  I grabbed the towel from my locker. “Great.”

  He stripped off his jersey and tossed it into his locker. “Heard you put some asshole kid on his back.”

  I untied my shoes, and when I sat up, I noticed Ty watching me from the other end of the room.

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling my jersey off and dropping it in my bag.

  I dropped my shorts to the floor, grabbed my towel and shower bag. I walked through the doors to the showers, a rectangular-shaped room with a dozen showerheads spaced out on the walls. I went to the farthest one from the door, hung my towel and bag on the hook next to the head, and turned on the water. I stepped under the nozzle, letting the hot water sting the top of my head as I shut my eyes beneath it.

  “I heard it was over Amy,” Derek said, turning on the faucet next to me and hanging his towel up. “Was it?”

  I rubbed shampoo into my hair. “Yeah.”

  Other guys came into the showers. I rinsed the shampoo from my hair, squeezing my eyes shut as the soap and water ran off my head. I wiped my hands over my face and opened my eyes. Derek was eyeing me from under the water.

  “You seem really preoccupied with her,” he asked.

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah. You do.”

  I grabbed the soap, lathered up, and rinsed off. I heard the spray of water at other showerheads, but not voices. “If you say so.”

  “You know she asked us to take her up there, right? I told you this already, man,” he said, lowering his voice. “She was totally into it.”

  I shut off the water and grabbed my towel off the hook. “Not what I heard.”

  “No?” he asked. “What'd you hear? Because that's exactly what you heard from me. Whatever else you heard was a fucking lie, dude. She wanted it.” He gave me a half-smile, the water dripping over his face. “You should've come up and taken a shot, Mickelson. You said you were into her. I wouldn't have minded. She was pretty damn sweet.”

  I wrapped the towel around myself, grabbed my shower bag, and walked out of the shower without saying anything. I'd already been in one pseudo fight that day, and I'd promised two people who sort of controlled my life that I wouldn't get in another one. Standing there with Derek seemed like a good way to break that promise. I toweled off in front of my locker and pulled on my sweats. I sat down on the bench and was pulling my socks on when Blake walked in, towel tight around his waist, shaking the water out of his hair.

  He pulled open his locker door and glanced down at me. “I'm trying to figure you out, Mickelson.”

  “How's that?” I asked, trying to get my sock on str
aight.

  “Trying to figure out why you're buying into what some chick says over your teammates,” he said, shaking out his hair again. “That doesn't seem very cool.”

  I looked down at my socks.

  “Look, man. You're new, so everything's new, right? But you're wrong about Amy Mitchell,” he said. “You don't know her. I don't know what you heard, but she was into it.”

  I pulled my running shoes on. “You guys sure seem to be saying that a lot.”

  “Because it's the truth,” he said, pulling a T-shirt on and then a pair of shorts.

  “Or because if you say it enough, people will think it's the truth,” I said.

  He ran his hand through his hair, gave me a condescending smile, and shook his head. “No, because it's the truth.”

  “So you guys asked her?” I said, tying my shoes. “You're telling me you asked her and she was down?”

  “Fuck yeah, she was,” Ty said, strutting back into the room, towel around his waist. Derek was right behind him. Ty kept his eyes on me until he got to his locker. It was an unmistakable don't-fuck-with-me look.

  Blake winked at me.

  They were so sure of themselves. And no one called them on it. No one questioned them. It almost made me believe them. Almost.

  “And, honestly, dude,” Ty said. “This is getting old. I think you're just jealous. I think you wanted in and you're pissed that you didn't get any.” He looked down the room at me and grinned. “You could've just come up there. But maybe you were afraid of a little performance anxiety or some shit like that.”

  A few laughs drifted around the room. I glanced around. Derek and Blake were both laughing. Ken had a towel over his head and was texting on his phone, sitting on the bench at the other end of the room. I saw the other faces, the other guys who filled out our bench, the other faces I didn't know all that well. A couple were laughing, a couple were packing up their clothes, a couple were still getting dressed. If anybody other than me was freaked out by what had happened at Ty's house, they weren't showing it.

  It was just me.

  No matter what Amy thought, I wasn't one of them.