by R. T. Lowe
“Don’t move,” JJ repeated and unbuckled Felix’s chin strap, then gingerly lifted the helmet over his head.
“Holy shit!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Look at the face mask!” Felix saw it. It was pulverized.
“Are you kidding me, Clay!” Coach Bowman reached over and took the damaged helmet from JJ. “You goddamn knew it was no contact. And that was a goddamn helmet-to-helmet hit.” He raised it up to eye level, took a few steps in Jimmy’s direction, and gave it a disgusted shake. The plastic grill had broken off from the helmet on one side and was swaying limply in the air. “What the hell’s a matter with you, son?”
“Sorry coach,” Jimmy mumbled. “I was a… playin’ the ball. It was an accident. I didn’t even see him.”
“Try to move your fingers,” JJ said to Felix.
Felix did. They moved just fine. Then he tried to sit up, but the trainer put a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back down to the turf. Some of his teammates clapped, apparently relieved that he wasn’t paralyzed.
“I’m fine.” Felix sat up quickly before JJ could stop him. His ears were ringing a little, but he felt all right.
“You sure?” JJ asked him skeptically, taking out a penlight. He shone it into his left eye, blinding it for a second, and then the right. “Well, your pupils look fine. When were you born?”
“The day I became a Sturgeon,” Felix announced, knowing the coaches would like that.
“Good answer, August!” Coach Bowman bellowed, striding up beside him, his large belly straining the fabric of his shirt to its outermost limits. “You sure you’re okay, son?”
“Never better,” Felix answered confidently.
Coach Bowman smiled down at Felix for a moment, then his eyes found Jimmy (Felix could now see he was standing at the back of the crowd some twenty yards away) and his face set in an angry scowl. “Clay! Get your dumb ass to the track and give me four laps! Do it in under eight or you won’t see the field Saturday.” Bowman paused and added: “That’s enough for today, boys.” He blew his whistle in three short blasts. “Hit the showers!”
Brant stepped over to Felix and reached down with his hand as the crowd began to disperse. Felix took it and Brant heaved him up to his feet. “Damn, you’re a helluva lot tougher than me,” Brant said in a twang. He was from a small town in Texas Felix had never heard of and could never seem to remember.
Felix shrugged and stared down at his hands accusingly. “Sorry. I should’ve caught it.”
Brant laughed. “Seriously? That was a shitty ass throw. I totally hung you out to dry for that roided-up asshole. But don’t you worry—his punishment for trying to kill you is four whole laps. You think he’s gonna do it in under eight?” He pointed across the field. “Check it out.”
Jimmy was on the track. One of his buddies had joined him. Jimmy was laughing. They were both walking.
“What a dick,” Felix grumbled, amazed that the coaches were letting him off so easy.
“Yeah, no shit,” Brant agreed. “That guy’s trouble. And I think he’s got it in for you. You better watch your back.”
Chapter 7
The Groundskeeper
From the window of his third floor office, Bill Stout stood watching the students milling about in The Yard below. He was quite a bit older than the students, old enough, in fact, to be a tenured professor, but he could pass easily for a graduate student if he dressed for the part. He thought of his appearance as ‘flexible’, and it allowed him to mingle with faculty, alumni, and even students, without appearing out of place.
Bill hadn’t always been a ‘Bill’. He’d once gone by William. But no one had called him William—outside of his immediate family—since college. The summer before his senior year, he’d worked as an intern at the Green River Psychiatric Hospital. His experiences there had changed him—completely. So he’d thought it best—fitting—to retire William along with the life that he’d thought he was going to live. Now he was just Bill, a simple name for complicated times.
He poured himself a cup of tea from a thermos.
The office was large and bright, the south facing window providing a postcard worthy view of the campus and an abundance of natural light. PC had more office space than it knew what to do with (all full-time employees were “taken care of”), but this particular space would still be empty if he hadn’t offered a small ‘incentive’ to his supervisor: $10,000 in exchange for the office (and the job—since he was in no way qualified for his current position) and the promise of $20,000 more at the end of the school year if his supervisor let him “do his own thing.”
His only complaint about the office (and it wasn’t really a complaint) was the shortage of real estate for his books. But PC’s newly minted assistant groundskeeper (lawnmower guy seemed a better title) had no right to complain about such things because he had no right to an office in the first place. In any event, the problem wasn’t the lack of shelving; whatever the upper limit for book toting acceptability might be, Bill had exceeded it: Two full walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves were bursting with books. There were also volumes piled high in front of the shelved books and several teetering towers stacked along the back wall behind a monstrous desk undoubtedly still there because ignoring it was easier than moving an object that weighed more than a truck. In the past seventeen years he’d lived in more places than he cared to recall, but as long as he had his books with him, he never felt completely alone. Even adults are entitled to their security blankets.
When a lovely old lady from HR (her three kids had all graduated with PC degrees, she’d told him proudly) had first brought him here a little over a week ago, the air was heavy with the medicinally sweet smell of lemon Pledge. The desk and an antique walnut table with two matching chairs—which sat beneath the window—had been freshly dusted and polished. And someone had left two brass keys on the table: one for the office door, the other for the desk.
Other than the books, the only personal effects he’d brought with him were some framed maps now displayed on the wall behind the desk. He’d always liked maps. Even as a kid, he’d had a wall-to-wall mural of the Caribbean islands next to his bed. There was something comforting about the constant reminder that the world was much larger than the immediate space that he occupied. That philosophy also applied to books, and it was another reason he surrounded himself with his favorites wherever he went.
He sipped his tea and pulled down the window blinds, then went over to the desk, leaving his teacup on the table. He took out a key from his front pocket, reached down and unlocked the bottom drawer. He spent a few moments pushing aside some papers and folders until he found what he was after.
From the back of the drawer, he retrieved a small brown book. He settled into a comfortable but squeaky roller chair and placed it on the desk. Some parts of the gnarled cover were a slightly darker shade of brown than others and along its bottom edge the leather had begun to peel away from its backing. In the upper-right corner, written in black ink, it said:
The Journal of Eve Ashfield
Ashfield Castle
London England
Ever so gently, he slowly opened the cover and pressed it down until it lay flat against the desk. Just behind the cover was a sheet of crisp notepad paper mottled like a hen’s egg, the corners slightly dog-eared. It was swimming in words, words written in black ballpoint ink that had somehow retained most of its original color, though some of the letters had faded to a rich espresso. He called this piece of paper The Warning. The name wasn’t intended to be clever. It was simply descriptive—that’s what it was. After a brief letter from Eve to her sister Elissa, a warning filled up most of the page—The Warning—the words that had launched far more ships than Helen of Troy’s pretty face.
Bill kept it behind the front cover, right where it was when he’d discovered the journal in Elissa’s apartment all those years ago. He’d read it in its entirety on at least a hundred occasions over the years, each time no less exhausting, exhilarati
ng and disorienting than the time before. He knew exactly what it said, but recalling the words from memory and reading them on the page were completely different experiences. And taking into account what he was planning to do shortly, this would be his final opportunity to experience the words that had changed his life forever, the words that he’d first read when he was still ‘William’.
He focused his eyes on the piece of paper and began to read:
Elissa, my son came to me this morning, the eve of his 18th birthday, and asked if we believe him to be the Drestian. Had I lied he would have known, so I acknowledged his suspicions. The Warning says that the four signs will reveal the Drestian’s identity. We have witnessed all four. There can be no doubt.
He held me in his arms for a long while, then he smiled sadly and said, “I wish there was another way, mother, I really do.” There was a strange kindness in his voice, yet nothing will deter him, not even the great love that I know he feels for his family. He intends for his secret to die here with those who have kept it from the world. We have lived in denial of what was right before us, our love for our son paving the misguided path that will end this night.
I wish I could have finished this journal long before now, but my son senses such things, and I only dared to prepare The Warning. The rest I will write in haste before he suspects. I do not deserve your forgiveness, yet I pray that you grant it anyway. Goodbye. Eve.
Bill jerked his head up and tore his eyes away from the page, though they were drawn to it like a compass needle to the north. Emotions inundated him—sadness, fear, determination. They were exhilarating, and baffling, and as real as any emotions he’d ever felt. But they weren’t his. He sat motionless, breathing slowly until the bizarre sensation of being inside Eve’s head had passed. His stomach lurched, forcing bitter bile up through his larynx and into his mouth. He gagged and swallowed it back down. He looked around the office, trying to reorient himself to the present—to reality—by focusing on the titles crammed into the shelves next to the desk.
He took a deep breath and glanced down, careful not to let his eyes linger on any of the words long enough to actually read them. The Warning began just below Eve’s note to Elissa, the fateful words spoken almost 2,000 years ago. He considered reading it, but then decided against it. His body’s reaction to the journal depended on factors he’d never entirely understood, and today felt like one of those days where he couldn’t handle The Warning without retching all over the floor—and he had plans to try a new Italian place in the Pearl District.
Leaving The Warning on the desk, he closed the cover and slipped the journal back into the drawer, then locked it with his key. The nausea finally passed. He stared at the speckled paper until he wasn’t sure of the time, adrift in decades-old memories. Then, his mouth growing tight, he brought it up slowly, holding it by the top corners with his thumbs and forefingers. The paper fluttered. Do it! he told himself. Do it! It began to tear and the sound made Bill gasp as if he was in pain. He slapped it down quickly on the desk and ran a callused finger over the sawtooth split, trying to smooth away the wound. He leaned back, slouching, and blew out a frustrated sigh, putting his fingers between his eyebrows as if battling a hangover. He couldn’t do it. He could never do it. This wasn’t his first attempt.
One day soon, the boy would be here in his office, sitting at his table, reading the journal. That was the plan, a plan that had been formulated long ago. His gaze snapped back to The Warning and he thought about the consequences if the boy saw it: His stomach turned again and a shimmer of dread (and guilt) inched up his throat, causing his teeth to clench. The plan didn’t include showing him The Warning. He couldn’t let that happen. Which was why he needed to shred it, to erase all traces of its existence. But he couldn’t do it. He could never do it… despite the consequences. This odyssey—his odyssey—had all begun with the journal, and he couldn’t just tear up The Warning, the most important part, like it was junk mail. And the paper was more than just pulp and chemicals; it was something real and tangible, his only physical connection to Elissa, and he wasn’t ready to give that up. Even after all these years there were times when his feelings of love and loss were as confusing and potent as the night she died—the night she left him. He would lock The Warning away someplace safe. The boy would never find out about it. Like ships passing in the night.
He stood on legs that felt a little shaky, crossed the office to the window and pulled down on the cord to open the blinds. Another day was slipping away. In a few hours, the sun would begin its descent beyond the cupola-topped buildings to the west. His teacup was on the table. He’d forgotten all about it. He sat down and sipped Earl Grey, wondering what Elissa’s son was doing this evening.
Chapter 8
Roommates
Fatassosaurs. There were three: Jonas, Larry and Salty. On the first day of practice Jonas had showed up in a Stegosaurus T-shirt and one of the coaches called him a fatassosaur. The name quickly caught on with the other coaches. And since Jonas was always hanging out with Larry and Salty, the coaches started calling them fatassosaurs too. Now the kids on the team were doing it, but Felix wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. Maybe they carried a little extra pudge around their midsections, like all offensive linemen do, but they weren’t fat—they were just big. The most menacing-looking trio Felix had ever been around. If he ever found himself in the middle of a brawl he wanted them on his side.
In a lot of ways the fatassosaurs were interchangeable: they were all from Portland and had known each other since pre-school; they were all into ink—they had the same barbwire tattoo coiled around their sunfreckled arms, which were bigger than most kids’ legs; and they all had a penchant for wearing T-shirts better suited for pre-pubescent girls. But best of all, they were all perfect candidates for hovering. They spent most of their time giving each other shit, and no one seemed to notice (or maybe they just didn’t care) that Felix kept to himself and didn’t say much. They were more interested in flexing their biceps than their brains, but being around them and their low-brow banter was distracting, and maybe even a little comforting. It was like eating ice cream out of the carton while watching Jackass reruns.
Felix walked behind them, as he usually did. Larry was getting into it with Jonas about something, but Felix wasn’t listening. He was content just to be outside. They would be at their dorms shortly—Downey and Satler, where the school assigned every freshman to live during their first year—and there was something waiting for him in Downey (his dorm) that he was dreading. So he soaked up the sunshine and tried to enjoy the moment. It felt awesome; like an extension of football practice, but without the HGH-fueled psychopaths delivering bone-jarring cheap shots. He heard someone—Jonas?—say “Kim” and he knew immediately what they were talking about. He was intimately familiar with the details of the Kim story.
Jonas had gone to a party last year and hooked up with a girl he’d never met before—Kim. A few months later, his family had staged a big party for his grandmother’s birthday. At the party, Jonas bumped into Kim again only to find out they were distantly related: third cousins twice removed or fourth cousins or something like that. Jonas, stupid drunk one night, made the mistake of telling Larry and Salty about the whole thing.
“So what’d Kim say when she realized she’d had sex with her cousin?” Larry asked Jonas. Felix had heard this exact line at least ten times. Larry was grinning. Nothing made Larry happier than busting Jonas’s balls.
“The same thing your mother said,” Jonas replied, smiling at what he thought was a witty comeback (the same witty comeback he always used).
“I just love having sex with all my cousins,” Salty screeched in a highly disturbing falsetto that gave Felix the chills. Salty had a follow-up to that comedic gem: “That’s what we do here in West Virginia.”
“Watch your mouth, shitwad!” Larry blasted Salty’s shoulder with his forearm, knocking him off the path and into the grass. “That’s my mother you’re talkin’ a
bout.”
“Why you hittin’ me?” Salty complained. “Jonas is the one talkin’ shit about your mother.”
“I didn’t say shit about his mother,” Jonas shot back and shoved Salty into Larry, who pushed him right back into Jonas. Felix dropped back a step to avoid the 260-pound human ping pong ball.
Larry grunted. “Nah. You just banged your cousin. You’re sick, ya know. How could you do that, you sick freak.”
“Incest is best, bitches. Ain’t my fault you don’t have any bangable cousins.” Jonas grinned wide and blew hot air on his fingernails, then buffed them on his massive chest.
Felix felt the edges of his mouth tilting up into a smile, then quickly looked up, expecting to see the disapproving faces of his parents. But there was nothing but clear air and blue sky. For now (at least) he was safe. Up ahead, he saw the brick façade of Downey, and directly across from it, Satler. From a distance, the dorms looked identical, and close up, they still looked identical. The only distinguishing feature between the two all-freshman dorms, tucked away in the northeast corner of campus, was their names: One was named for Bernard Satler, a wealthy alumnus, and the other, for a former dean, Thomas Downey.
Felix skirted around the fatassosaurs to get a better view of the Freshman Yard, a stretch of emerald green grass that separated the dorms. He didn’t like what he was seeing: the miniaturized version of The Yard was crawling with people. Little kids were chasing each other across the grass, and older people—parents, he supposed—were walking around aimlessly taking pictures. There was a game of soccer on one side, and on the other, it looked like the students were playing wiffle ball against their parents and younger siblings. He picked up the scent of cooking meat and noticed white smoke drifting up from a line of grills set up at the edge of the lawn over on the Satler side.