That split is super hard to reconcile.
Born lucky, Prince Hamlet was the son of a murdered dude.
***
Gus was right. The school was buzzing the next morning, Wednesday morning. They’d mentioned the Dickinski video on KLYV, the radio station in Dubuque, and on WSWW, the local news station, so moms knew about it. It flew through Facebook and Twitter.
Karpinski continued to stay out of school. Cody glared at me. Bony Emily, wearing her “Bully Me” shirt, ran up and hugged me around the neck. “My cousin in Kentucky saw the video. He was like ‘Hot damn, that’s Emily!’”
“Weird,” I said.
Pig Boy shouted across the commons, “I’m a movie star!”
Abby said, “Jess won’t even look at me.” Her face was totally pale.
The volume kept going up.
In the middle of Linder’s class, the school secretary came to the door and knocked. Linder was in the middle of a discussion about how Hamlet kills the crap out of Polonius (sort of his girlfriend’s dad) and how that wasn’t exactly a well-thought-out act. Linder wasn’t remotely pleased to see Mrs. McGinn standing there.
“What?” he asked.
“Felton Reinstein has a phone call in the office,” she said.
“Can he return the call later?” Linder asked. “What you’re seeing here…” Linder waved his hand in front of all of us, “is an educational classroom.”
Then Mrs. McGinn whispered (across the whole room), “It’s from a Madison TV station. They need an interview ASAP.”
Several people shouted, “Jesus!” and “Whoa!”
Mr. Linder said, “Good lord. Go on, Felton.”
I said, “No thanks.”
Gus tapped me on the shoulder. “Go. Mention my name. Come on.”
I got up slowly and followed Mrs. McGinn out the door. We walked through the empty halls. Mrs. McGinn said, “I went to school with Dave Karpinski. You got him just right, Felton. He was just like that back in ’86 too.”
A week earlier, Mrs. McGinn, wearing a Wisconsin Badger sweater, gave me the evil eye. I’m serious.
***
The reporter wasn’t on the phone. She’d been set up on Skype. McGinn sat me down at her computer. “Hi, this is Megan Hansen.”
“Hi?” I said, staring at her blond head. I recognized her from TV.
“Do you mind if I record?” she asked.
“Video?” I asked.
“TV news,” she said.
“No?” I said.
“Great. Fantastic.” She smiled.
Then Megan Hansen congratulated me on accepting the scholarship to Stanford. I said, “Thanks.” She asked about the video.
“You remind me of Bill Murray in it,” she said. “Was he your inspiration?”
Bill Murray? Talk to my dad. He’s dead but still owns a Caddyshack poster. I took a breath. You think, Felton. No thoughtless chatter. Don’t make this worse. “No. My friends were,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
I told her it was Abby’s brainchild. “My friend, Abby, is funny.” I told her Gus directed, filmed, and edited the thing, and it was really his genius. “He’s been studying films forever. He’s great.” I didn’t tell her I’d never watched it and didn’t intend to or that Karpinski wasn’t in school.
“How do you feel? First, you’re a star athlete. Now you star in a viral video with a million views.”
“A million?” I asked. I shook my head.
“And counting,” she said.
“Holy balls.” Keep it together.
“Ha, ha,” she laughed. “There are dozens of copycat videos out there too.”
“I’ve heard,” I said.
“Have you watched them?”
“I’m pretty busy.”
“Preparing for track, I bet.”
“Yeah. Lots of running. I run like a sheepdog. Around and around the yard,” I said. “I can’t stop.” Keep it together, idiot!
Megan Hansen laughed. “Nobody knew you were such a funny guy.”
“True that,” I said. “I better get back to class. My English teacher’s pretty rough on us.”
“Wait. Do you have time for one more question, Felton?” She sucked in her cheeks and squinted like this was really important.
“Sure. A quickie,” I replied.
She laughed. I don’t know why she laughed. Then she asked, “Does ‘The Polish Fist’ represent your reaction to the way Wisconsin has treated you since you made your Stanford announcement?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does Dickinski…you know his stupidity and bravado…does he represent Wisconsin?”
My first thought was to say, “Hell, yeah! Wisconsin is a doofus, turd-swallowing pervert with a fat gut and a love of any female with boobs.” But instead, I took a deep breath and gathered my non-Hamlet thoughts. “No,” I said. “I understand why people were so angry. It was really stupid to grab the Wisconsin hat. I love this state. It will always be home to me. I’m so sorry.”
“Perfect, Felton. I have that on video,” she said. “I’ll use it.”
Back in Linder’s class, I was greeted as a hero (not by Linder himself). Then the bell rang.
***
The story ran at the end of the 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. broadcasts. I watched it once with Abby. Even though my interview part was edited way down, the piece still mentioned her and Gus. I also got home in time to see it an hour later with Jerri, who said, “When did you make this video? Can I watch it?”
“No,” I told her.
I didn’t watch the segment at 10 p.m. I felt sick about Karpinski. I felt sick about Cody. And the story was really focused on that final thing I said, my big statement of love for Wisconsin, my apology. I looked really honest and sad when I said it. And then I had to turn my phone off because out of no place, I began getting texts of love from random people, texts forgiving me for what I’d done two weeks earlier, texts wishing me luck in my move to California.
It made me sick. I didn’t deserve to be treated well.
I ran for an hour in the dark on the main road outside our house.
Chapter 47
Bust
During the fall, coaches kept pulling me out of classes for this or that. A recruiter called. A reporter wanted to talk. A buddy was in town and wanted to meet me. Most teachers just went for it. Mr. Linder, however, did not.
In October, he went off on Coach Knautz. He called him a bald-headed Neanderthal in front of the whole class and said he’d flunk me if I ever got pulled from class again (one of many reasons I didn’t want to go with Mrs. McGinn the day before).
Apparently, Coach Knautz got the message about interrupting AP English because he didn’t barge right in. With about five minutes left to go in the class that Thursday, I could see his round walnut of a head bobbing in the little glass window in the doorway.
“You got company,” Gus whispered.
“Why me?”
“Who else would Knautz be here for?”
My heart began to pound.
“What’s that, Gus?” Mr. Linder asked.
“Felton has an escort waiting at the door,” Gus said.
“Business gets in the way of art again, huh?” Linder said. “You’re walking on thin ice, my friend.”
“I know,” I said.
When the bell rang, I bolted for the door.
“Hey,” I said to Knautz in the hall. I was breathing hard.
“A word. Now,” Knautz said. He was sweating. He looked ill.
“What is it?” I asked. I know. Cody told. He has no reason to protect you.
“Get your ass to my office, Rein Stone.”
Knautz plowed through the corridors, kids falling to the side in his wake. I scurried along behind him like a sc
ared dog. He bowled through the commons and my stomach dropped and my heart ached and pain fired into my arms and legs. This is it. This is it. This is happening.
It felt like I was floating on the ceiling, looking down at my doomed body walking.
We arrived in his office and he held the door. When I walked in, he slammed it behind me. His lips quivered. His eyes were blood. He walked to the other side of his desk and slammed his palms onto the top.
I jumped.
“Sit down,” he said.
I sat.
He leaned over the desk. He shook his head. “What have you been doing to prepare for the track season?” he hissed.
“I don’t know. I…I’ve been running a lot. I’ve been doing stairs and…”
“You’re in a fishbowl. You’re a target. You can’t screw up. What have you been doing to prepare for the track season?” he shouted.
“I…I’ve been training a ton. I can’t stop running.”
“I know. I know, Rein Stone. I heard about your workout.”
“What?” I gulped for air.
“Getting wasted? Drinking yourself stupid?”
“No.”
“Why would you do that? Why couldn’t you wait?” he shouted. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“You’ve got everything you want. You have your free ride and your football championship and your hot girlfriend. What about your teammates? What about your friends who have just one more shot at winning something big, at grabbing for something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives? Do you think Karpinski is going to play college sports? Do you think Hinkins or Hoyme or Satish are ever going to have another shot at doing this?”
“No. I didn’t think…”
“You didn’t think.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Too damn bad.”
“What?” I gulped for air.
“You just wrestled our shot at winning the team trophy away from all those guys who have busted their asses for years.”
“No. Coach. I…I…”
“You got drunk and you got stupid and you are done!” he shouted.
“I can’t…”
“Get out of my office, Reinstein.” Big drops of sweat bubbled on his red face. He hissed, “I’ve wasted too much time on your prima-donna ass. Get out now!”
I stood. The room spun. I slid back down into the chair. My breath couldn’t go into my lungs right.
He stared at me. “You better be the hell out when I get back.”
And then, Coach Knautz, the guy who found me, who guided me onto the team as a sophomore, who protected me from the seniors that wanted to knock me down, tore out of his office. He slammed the door so hard, it bounced back open and crashed against the cinder block wall so that the whole room trembled.
Freshmen gym students came running to see what had happened. They stuck their heads in the door.
Me? I trembled.
Chapter 48
Run
I didn’t go back to school. I left out the west doors of the gym and escaped into the parking lot.
Thank God it was warm enough.
Thank God my keys were in my jeans pocket.
Go.
I unlocked my bike and I tore out of the lot, accelerating, pedaling as hard as I could.
Instead of going back into town, I crushed the pedals, heading toward the big M, the hill east of town that has a giant M built from painted boulders on its side. (M because Bluffton had a mining college.)
I pressed.
I’d blown up my team. My friends.
My knees felt like they’d break. My triceps were pooled lava from holding myself up on the handlebars. Worse, my quads felt like they’d explode, but I pressed. I rolled into the park at the foot of the M. Let my bike drop. Stumbled to a picnic table and lay down on my back. Blinked at that weird, winter blue sky that was warm when it should be cold. This is a bad world. Broken. I sucked for air. My chest collapsed, inflated, collapsed. My lungs burned.
This has been my place, this M. My dad took me here when I was tiny. This is where I ran off Jerri’s insanity when I was a fifteen-year-old squirrel. This is where I breathed, going up and down the thing, when college recruiting felt like it would crush me. Cody, Karpinski, Abby, Reese, and Jess—we’d come here on summer nights to watch the twinkling lights of our tiny hometown. But mostly, this was where I’d run and run and run.
I lay there on that picnic table, energy flowing out of me.
I couldn’t run.
Chapter 49
Culture of Violence
I think I fell asleep on that picnic table. I sat up shivering, sweating in my coat. The sun was beginning to set over Bluffton.
I’d left my phone in my locker, so I wasn’t getting texts telling me what a jerk I was for blowing up the track season. Good one rein stone screwing it for everyone…
I didn’t want to go home, but I didn’t have any place else to go, so I biked slow into town and up past the high school. There were a few cars in the parking lot. Basketball practice was going. Cody’s truck was there.
I turned right at the edge of the high school grounds. I pedaled for a couple football fields on Highway 18 (semis passing me, blowing me sideways). When I hit Ridge Road, I took a left and biked along the south end of Legion Field and then I saw something in the long shadows of the baseball field’s stands.
Tommy Bode.
He was in front of someone. He was screaming. Then he was scuffling with someone. Who would beat up a kid who lost his brother?
I pulled my wheel up over the curb and pressed hard, accelerating through mud and muck until I was up to them. I threw down my bike and leapt on top of the other kid, pulling him out of Pig Boy’s grip, lifting him up by his armpit and leg, whipping him to the side, his head cracking against the aluminum of the baseball stands. The kid started screaming. Blood poured from a gash above his eye.
Pig Boy—hot, red, sweating—cried, “What did you do?”
“No one can hurt you,” I shouted.
“But I was winning! I was winning! I was killing him!”
I looked at the screaming kid. I recognized him. It was Ryan Bennett. He was not big.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Ryan screamed. Blood ran down his hand, which he used to cover his wound. “Leave me alone!” he screamed.
“Holy shit, Tommy,” I said. “A little kid?”
Ryan started to run.
I ran after him. “Are you okay? Do you need help? Can I ride you to the hospital? Do you have a phone? I can call your mom.”
“Leave me alone!” he screamed again.
He kept running. I stopped chasing. I stood there.
What next? Call police? Arrest yourself for criminal assault on a little kid?
I leaned over, hands on knees, trying to catch my breath. Nothing felt real.
I turned and stumbled back toward my bike. I had to swallow so I wouldn’t throw up.
Pig Boy stood there.
“I was winning,” Pig Boy said.
“Not now, okay?” I gulped.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked.
“I don’t want you hurt.”
“But you didn’t have to do that. I chased him down on my bike. He tried to run.”
I stood straight. I stared at Tommy. “You chased him. You wanted this?”
“I saw him walking and wanted to tell him that he was mean to Curtis. So I chased him and I pushed him and put him in a headlock and we fell over and then you came and picked him up.”
“Oh shit, Tommy,” I said.
“You whipped him like a bag of potatoes.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I’ll find him again and finish this,” Tommy said.
“No…
No!” I shouted.
“It’s my job to fight evil,” he said.
“No, you idiot. That kid…that kid isn’t evil. He’s a little puke piece of shit, but…” I caught my breath. I nodded. Talked fast. “We have to apologize. You want to come to Ryan’s with me? We can explain about Curtis.”
“No.” Pig Boy shook his head. “My elbow hurts.” Pig Boy climbed on his crap bike and rolled away.
I nodded. Of course. Of course.
It had been a dozen years since my dad killed himself and I was still freaking out. Curtis had died five weeks earlier. Tommy would be crazy forever. But Tommy had it worse. I never had an older kid in my ear, filling me with shit, saying I was his sidekick, agreeing to fight evil. What if I turned Pig Boy into a murderer?
Look at you. You set in motion the events to hurt everyone.
No. He needs to be powerful.
I don’t know. Oh shit. Oh shit.
I got on my bike. I rolled home, snuck inside (Jerri was upstairs), and fell over into my bed, and after three hours of this sickness in my gut, loss of track, Pig Boy murderer, Karpinski gone from school, seeing no path out, no path, I thought: what about a beer?
Chapter 50
Me and Hamlet, Two Nuts in a Sack
Then all night. I couldn’t sleep because my heart was racing.
No Andrew. No Aleah. No Gus. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t.
In this weird fever, I saw Dad’s rope. I saw it in my hands. Why?
Abby. She understood the slings and arrows. The mortal coil. She’d kept the killer snake away with peach schnapps. That’s not rope. She understood. At 4 a.m., I looked for my phone so I could call her. Couldn’t find it. Turned over my bed. Did it slide against the wall? No.
Then I remembered. It was in my locker at school.
I tried to breathe. I put my bed together. I lay there staring at the ceiling.
Go to school. Face your shit so you can get your phone…no schnapps left at Abby’s…her mom broke the booze…go in Abby’s car to Cal’s barn.
Maybe I slept for a few minutes? Not really.
At 7:30, I rolled out of bed. I didn’t shower. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, tried to keep breathing.
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