What would I face at school? I’d skipped the last couple hours. Detention? I’d been kicked off track, which made me want to break my own face. They will scream at you? Hate you? You hate yourself! The town will know everything. I’d beaten up an eighth grader. He bled. The cops will come. They should come for you.
Jerri wasn’t awake yet. I moved quietly through the house. Ate a piece of dry bread to stop my stomach from rotting, then went out through the garage, muscles trembling.
I rode to school slowly, sick but ready to face what was coming so I could get my phone and Abby.
Maybe not ready…
I locked my bike and sucked for air. Find Abby. Keep it together. Find Abby. I moved toward the doors. Bony Emily passed me on the way in.
“Hi, Felton!”
So did Kirk Johnson, who is on the 4x100 relay with me. “Hey, man,” he said. He was carrying a dozen roses. I stared at the flowers. Is this a dream?
I followed him through the doors and into the chemical-smelling commons, where all the kids gather before the bell rings. Lots of people had flowers. Lots of people were eating from candy boxes. Valentine’s Day. I was so checked out that I didn’t even know.
And nobody glared at me. No one even looked?
I picked up speed and turned toward the hall where the senior lockers are.
Two seconds earlier, I’d just wanted to see Abby. Then I saw her and she smiled and she carried a white flower and I didn’t want to see her. I wanted to look at my phone to see if the cops had called about Ryan Bennett because they should’ve called.
Abby: “There you are. You okay? Man, I was worried about you last night. I tried to drive over, but the Buick bit it in front of Weber’s! Dead! I wish Jerri would let you plug in your landline. It sucks when your phone is dead. What should I do about my car? We can’t get to Walmart to study without it. Hey, I got this white flower from the student council for you!”
I kept walking while she talked. She grabbed my wrist and pulled.
“Whoa, dude. Slow down. What’s up? What’s wrong with your hair? You look like a homeless guy. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t hear anything?”
“About what?” Abby asked. “Nolan told me Knautz got mad at you for not getting in shape. He yelled at you in the locker room? Is that what you’re talking about? Did you run last night? Is that why you didn’t call?”
“No…I…I forgot my phone here.”
“You need to work out a lot before we hang tonight? I totally get it, Felton. We have to stay on top of…”
“No,” I spat. “You don’t get it.”
Abby shook her head. Her eyes watered. “What is up, dude?”
“Nothing. Okay? Let’s talk later, okay, Abby? I have to get to…”
“You are not okay,” she whispered.
“Let’s talk later.”
“Felton?” she said.
“Later.”
I turned a corner—not to my locker but to get away from Abby. I turned into some random hall filled with lockers (freshman lockers and kids with flowers). There was Nolan Sauter. Jesus. Ryan told him. He had to. I know…
“Hey, man,” he said.
I nodded.
“Sorry Knautz yelled at you,” he said.
Was he trying to be nice? Ryan Bennett didn’t tell him I’d popped his freaking coconut? And why the hell didn’t anyone know I was kicked off the freaking track team? This was huge news! I needed someone to come after me to make it real.
I buzzed around a corner and down a hall and around another and down another hall and no one said one bad word to me, but I deserved terrible words, brutal words—You should go into Knautz’s office so he can scream at you again—and then the bell rang. I ran to my locker to get books.
In my locker? My phone. Other than three texts from Abby, there were no new messages, no voicemails. Nothing.
***
In class, people were chipper. “Hi!” It was a happy day. Valentine’s Day. Everybody munched on candy.
Where’s Knautz? Where are the cops? Where’s Karpinski?
After class, I practically ran up to Cody when I saw him in the hall because I figured he’d know it all—because he knows everything terrible I do.
“Hey,” I said. I nodded at him. He wore a red flower pinned on his shirt.
“What?” he asked.
“Where’s Karpinski?” I asked.
“Gone.”
“Why’s he gone?” I asked.
“Embarrassed.” Cody turned his back and opened his locker. I took off.
At lunch, I asked Abby, “Is Karpinski sick? Is he okay? Have you heard?”
“I don’t know, man. Should I ask Jess? I’ll ask her. Do you want me to call him?”
“Did he quit school?”
Abby furrowed her brow. She shook her head a little. “Felton. You are the opposite of calm, man,” she said. “You have to tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing,” I said. Shut up. Om shanti. Be quiet. I tried to keep my mouth shut the rest of lunch.
“Om shanti” is the peace chant Jerri taught me when I was a kid and she was a serious freak. I’d say it out loud and people would kick my ass.
***
I got to Linder’s, to AP English. Gus sat in the chair next to mine. He wore a black Valentine’s flower. Maddie’s joke. He said, “Hey, did you see the Dickinski video from that group of black dudes in Las Vegas?”
“What?”
“They did a really hilarious “Jamaican Fist” video. They blow magical ganja smoke on ladies. That’s the best knockoff so far. You should check it out.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“What? Are you kidding?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing personal.”
“Yeah, right,” Gus said.
Linder started class. More Hamlet. I didn’t want to think about Hamlet. No slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Wasn’t living through this shit enough? We had to read about it too?
“Do crazy people know when they’re crazy?” Linder asked.
Carrie Smith, this nerdy junior girl said, “No. They totally can’t tell. My uncle Mark is schizoid and he thinks he’s, like, the height of clear brained when he’s totally, like, hearing ghost voices in his head. License plate numbers told him he was the reincarnation of Gandhi once.”
“Tough,” Linder said. “How about this? What if you’re a little off, a little cloudy? Do you know something’s wrong then?”
Several people raised their hands and nodded.
“I know when I’m not right with the world,” said Kayla Zielsdorf. “I just feel confused and can’t decide about anything, like what I’m going to wear or eat or whatever.”
You don’t know the meaning of off! I screamed in my brain.
“Was Hamlet crazy? Did he know his behavior was off? Was it all a plan?” Linder asked.
Then Mrs. McGinn knocked on the door.
“Oh my God. Now what?” Linder spat. “Interrupted three days in a row.”
Oh this is it. The cops are here. This is the time when the cuffs come out and you get hauled down to the lockup for crushing a kid against a bleacher. Please. Yes. Bring it on…
Linder opened the door. “We don’t want any,” he said.
“Special delivery,” Mrs. McGinn said. She handed Linder a box.
“Of course,” he said, “Addressed to Prince Reinstein of Bluffton. Who else?”
“It’s probably a bomb,” I said.
Everyone laughed. I didn’t laugh.
Linder handed it to me. “Go ahead. We’re derailed already. Open it up.”
Everybody stared and nodded and smiled. With a buzzing head and weak, shaking hands, I opened the box. There was a handwritten Stanford University note inside. It said
, “Congratulations, Felton!” Then I pulled out the most amazing football jersey I’d ever seen up close. It was that new one: dark red with black numbers. There was a little Nike swish and a black Stanford S just under the neckline. My number 34, but on this beautiful Stanford jersey. On the back it said “REINSTEIN.”
“Number 34!” Kayla said. (She wore a “Bully Me” shirt that Tommy had made.)
“Whoa,” Gus said. “That is cool.”
My AP English classmates applauded.
Me? My brain? Where the hell are the cops? Where was the hammer from the angry freaking god of track? Stanford doesn’t know my crimes.
“Was Hamlet crazy? Did he know his behavior was off?” Linder asked.
Hamlet needs a beer. Hamlet needs to lie down.
My classmates applauded.
I stuffed the jersey in my backpack.
Chapter 51
Saving Ryan Bennett
After school, I biked in a cold rain. Hard. I shot around town, in between cars that honked (I flipped them off), up big hills. I didn’t want to go home and sit there. (I might drink the kerosene Jerri kept for our camp stove, because kerosene smells sort of like alcohol.) I didn’t want to go to Abby’s and not tell her I’d been kicked off track. She doesn’t understand.
Part of my brain was saying, It didn’t happen. That meeting with Knautz was a bad dream. You’re still on track. Everyone would know! The other half of my brain said, You’re such a crazy Hamlet loser. Of course it happened. Crazy.
After biking several circles around all of rainy Bluffton, I just needed some confirmation that all the pain from the day before was real. I biked like dying lightning over to the neighborhood where I knew Ryan Bennett lived.
The cul de sac where I’d seen dudes from Andrew’s grade and the grade below playing hoops last summer was on the south end of town, behind the combination KFC–Taco Bell. When I’d biked past back then, one of the dudes had shouted, “Rein Stone, play some ball with us!” I’d waved but hadn’t pulled in. One of those little jock kids was Ryan. I knew that.
It took me ten minutes to get there and get up the hill to the new developments that stretch out into former farm fields toward Cuba City. My brain fried and sizzled the whole time. I kept repeating Ryan Bennett will tell me if I bashed his head for real.
On the street I thought might be his, the mailboxes are lined up together so the mailman doesn’t have to go up to each of the houses individually. I scanned the mailboxes. Sure enough, 115 Adams Court had the name “Bennett” on it. I rolled four houses down, and it was the same white box of a house with the basketball hoop I’d seen from biking before.
When I got in front of it, my heart almost gave out. What the hell are you doing? You’re going to ask Ryan if you actually hurt him? You’re going to turn yourself in to his parents? “Sorry, sir, I should be punished. I tried murdering your son.” I took a couple of breaths. Then thought Yes.
I set down my bike on the wet ground. Rain had soaked my jacket. My jeans were heavy and sopping blue. My homeless dude hair hung on my forehead. My backpack weighed a ton. I knocked on the door. Carly Bennett, his sophomore sister, answered.
“Uh, hi?” she said. Her face turned red. She sort of stuttered. “What are you doing here?”
“I know. I know,” I said. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, I don’t mean…I don’t mean that. I just don’t know why you’re here,” Carly said.
“Get Ryan.”
“You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” she gulped. “Nolan said you…He already has stitches, okay?”
“He does? Okay. Just get him, okay? I don’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to.”
“Didn’t want to what?”
“Hurt his head.”
“He fell down. You didn’t hurt his head.”
“Just get him!” I shouted.
She looked like I’d slapped her. “Ryan,” she called.
“What?” he shouted back from deep in the house.
“Felton Reinstein is here.”
“Ohhh…” I heard him moan.
Carly kept standing there. Staring at me.
Ryan slinked up behind her. Yes, he looked like a jock (wore a Badgers hoops T-shirt). Yes, he still looked like a little kid (tiny shoulders, hairless face). And most important, yes, he had a bandage on his head where it had bounced off the back of the bleachers the day before.
“I did that to your head,” I said.
“What? Why didn’t you tell Dad?” Carly asked.
“Because,” Ryan said.
“You can tell,” I said. “You should tell your dad,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Your dad should know.”
“No…” he gulped for air. “No.”
“What is going on?” Carly whispered.
“I had it coming,” Ryan wheezed.
“Had it coming?” I said. “Not from me.”
“Tommy Bode,” Ryan wheezed. “I waited for Tommy when I saw him. I wanted to say sorry.”
“Tommy hunted you down.”
“No,” Ryan said. “I had to tell him…”
“What?” Carly said, swallowing.
“Oh Jesus. Jesus Christ. I pushed Curtis Bode into the bushes outside the middle school right before he…he…” Ryan’s eyes filled. His mouth trembled. Snot began to pour out his nose.
“Jesus, Ryan,” Carly said. “You pushed Curtis Bode?”
Ryan gulped for air. “I jammed him in this…this stupid bush.”
“Dude,” I whispered. “Oh man…”
“Why would you shoot yourself?” Ryan cried. “Why would someone? We were just messing around. Why would you…”
“What the hell’s going on down there?” A man’s voice came from upstairs. “Goddamn it. I told you kids to be quiet until five. Third goddamn shift. Do you understand what…”
A large dude with a big gut came walking down the stairs.
“Sorry, Dad,” Carly said.
“Holy…Felton Reinstein? What are you doing here?” the man said.
Ryan looked at me. Tears poured down his face. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“Hey,” I said. I saw his hand reach out. I thought about what Gus told me about handshakes. I shook hands with that big dad standing next to his son who was totally bawling. That dad didn’t even notice.
“Looking forward to track? We sure enjoyed watching you play ball last fall, didn’t we, Ryan?”
“Thanks,” I breathed. “I…I just wanted to tell Ryan that…that there’s nothing better than playing football at Bluffton. He’s going to have the time of his life next year.”
“Even a klutz like Ryan, huh? He busted his head open walking home yesterday.”
“I hear he’s great,” I said. “He’s a player.”
“Hear that, buddy?” Ryan’s dad said. He still didn’t look at Ryan, only at me. “All that work we put in is giving you a name, son.”
“I have to go,” I said. Ryan was completely losing it while his dad stood there all psyched to see me. Ryan blinked. His face burned. I turned to go. Then stopped. “Wait.”
“What?” the dad asked.
I pulled my backpack off and opened it up. I reached in and pulled out the Stanford jersey. I handed it to Ryan.
“Take care of this. Take good care of this,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Wow!” the dad shouted. “Look at that!”
I pulled my bag back on and moved.
I rode up the street. At the corner, I looked back. Mr. Bennett was still standing in his rainy yard, a shit-eating grin on his face. Ryan stood in the door holding my jersey.
Chapter 52
Can’t Pardon Me, Governor
Messed-up world.
When I got home, Jerri stood in the living room staring at a letter she’d just opened. She looked up at me. “You’re totally soaked.”
“I’m cold,” I said.
“Uh-huh. This came for you this afternoon,” she said. She held up the letter and scrunched her eyebrows.
It was a letter from the Governor of Wisconsin. She handed it to me.
The letter was printed on official Wisconsin letterhead with a big seal of the state on it. It was dated February 13—the day before.
It said:
On behalf of the State of Wisconsin, on this date, February 13, I, Scott K. Thompson, the Honorable Governor of the State of Wisconsin, hereby accept your apology to the people of the state.
All is forgiven, Mr. Reinstein. Best of luck at Stanford. We hope you will return to play for the Packers someday!
“What the hell, Jerri?” I asked.
“Why do people care so much about you?” she asked.
“Do you understand I won the genetic lottery?”
“Those aren’t my genes.”
“No shit,” I said.
Jerri glared.
Then my phone buzzed. A call. I pulled it out of my pocket. A Madison number. “What’s this?” I asked Jerri.
“I don’t know,” Jerri said. “Who?”
I answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Felton, this is Megan Hansen from WISC-TV. We talked the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“Hope you don’t mind me reaching out to your cell number. I figured you were out of school by now and we’d like a comment for the 10 o’clock news.”
“How’d you get this number?” I mumbled.
“Jay Haas, the sports guy.”
I’d talked to him a few times in the fall. “Okay…”
“We received a press release from the governor’s office with the text of a letter officially accepting your apology to the state. Did you get it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Pretty cute!” laughed Megan. “We taped a short interview with the governor’s spokesman—it’s a hoot—and thought it would be fun to get a quick response from you. Just audio. Do you mind?”
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