Left Out

by Tim Green

  “But . . . ,” his mom got ready to protest. “Wouldn’t something like soccer be safer?”

  The doctor snorted. “Soccer? Mrs. Dorch, look at your son. He’s built for football, not soccer. Anyway I’d have my kid in football with all that padding and a helmet any day before I’d have him running around full speed knocking heads or having a ball kicked in his face. Like I said, nothing is without risk, though.”

  “It’s just that you hear so much about football . . .” Landon’s mom was losing steam.

  The doctor ignored her, stepped back, and surveyed Landon. “One thing’s for sure: he could use the exercise.”

  Landon looked down at his gut and blushed. He was working on it, cutting back on the SmartChips, no matter how healthy they were, and on the second and third servings at meals despite his mother’s urgings to eat more.

  “Good luck in football, Landon. And remember that helmet!”

  That night Landon waited until dinner had been cleaned up and his mom was locked in her home office, busily working away on her laptop, before he tiptoed past the doorway two down from his bedroom and sought out his dad. His father didn’t need to lock himself away to do his work. His desk sat downstairs not far from Landon’s chair, in the middle of the living room in front of the big window overlooking the backyard. His father kept the surface of the massive claw-foot desk clear except for the iMac he wrote on as well as two leather books held proudly upright by marble busts of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

  Landon’s father declared that he liked to be in the center of their home because it let him draw from the lifeblood of their lives for his own work. Landon wasn’t exactly sure what lifeblood was, but he presumed it had something to do with the heart. He wondered also at the strategy since it hadn’t earned his father anything for the first two books but a box full of rejection letters that he saved as a source of motivation.

  He passed Genevieve’s room. Ten days in and Genevieve already had friends like Megan Nickell. With a father who was president of the country club and a mother who was a partner at Latham & Watkins, SmartChips’s law firm, Megan easily won the approval of Landon’s mom. Genevieve was with Megan right now for a sleepover. The house was quiet. He could feel the cool air flowing through the vents—the weather outside had taken a hot turn. Landon’s father sat slumped in front of his iMac, fingers on the keyboard, but idle.

  “Dad?” Landon tapped him on shoulder to get his attention.

  His dad turned and smiled like someone had sprung the lid on a treasure chest. “Hey, buddy. What are you doing? Finish your book?”

  “No, but I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You got it. Want some ice cream?”

  “Häagen-Dazs?”

  His father wore a look of mock concern. “Is there another kind?”

  Landon laughed and followed his dad into the kitchen area, which was separated from the living room only by the rectangular table where they ate. His father yanked open the freezer door and studied the shelves. “Hmm. When you don’t know which one, choose both.”

  He removed a quart of butter pecan as well as one of vanilla, tucked them under his arm, and then grabbed two large spoons from the drawer. “I’d say let’s sit out by the pool, but this stuff would be nothing but drool in five minutes flat.”

  They sat at the kitchen table, scooping out large hunks of ice cream and passing the quart containers back and forth in an easy rhythm until Landon held up both hands.

  “Gotta go easy,” he said. “Football.”

  “Ah, yes. The discipline of the Spartan.” His father held up a giant scoop of butter pecan and inserted it into his mouth.

  “What’s that mean?” Landon asked.

  “Well . . .” His father worked the ice cream around in his mouth and swallowed. “Discipline is you sacrificing—giving up something—for a greater cause. The Spartans were Greek warriors known for their harsh training. They were even crazy enough, I believe, to forgo butter pecan.”

  “I know Spartans.”

  “And now you’ve become one.” His father bowed his head toward Landon.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Landon glanced toward the hall, nervous that his mother might interrupt them. “Everything is going good. I passed my physical. The doctor said I could play. My implants are fine. Heck, he even told Mom playing football would be good for me.” Landon patted his gut.

  “Wonderful.” His father took another big bite.

  “But I need that helmet, and the special cap that goes under it,” Landon said. “Football starts next Wednesday. The first five days it’s just conditioning and running through plays, but helmets go on next week, and then the week after that we start to hit. But I need the helmet before so I can get used to it.”

  His father’s eyes widened.

  “I told Mom we gotta get my helmet and she keeps saying she’ll work on it and how expensive it is, but next Wednesday will be here before you know it, and you can’t just snap your fingers and have a helmet fall out of the sky. It’s like she’s trying to sabotage the whole thing by delaying, making it so I won’t have enough practices to play in the first game and then I will end up as the manager.”

  His father put the spoon down and looked at it. “Yes, that’s a problem, and I’ve seen this kind of strategy before. I wanted to see Carmina Burana. It was playing at the Cleveland Opera Theater, and your mom said she’d be happy to go and that she’d get the tickets through her office because they were sponsors. Well, I thought that sounded good because we could be in the pit or maybe even a box. Then the day before, when I asked, she snapped her fingers and said she was on it, but that night at dinner she announced that it had been sold out.” Landon’s father blinked at him. “Your mother hates the opera.”

  “Just like football.” Landon looked down and rapped his knuckles on the table before looking back up. “Can you help me, Dad?”

  7

  Landon peered over his father’s shoulder. They were back at his desk, with the spoons rinsed and tucked away in the dishwasher. His father typed and then clicked, bringing up the website for Xenith Helmets, a company that made specialty sports helmets of every kind. They got to the football section and his father scanned the material quickly, his lips moving fast and silently, before he tapped the screen and leaned back.

  “It’s ingenious, really,” he said. “There’s a diaphragm in the lining, like a couple of mini beach rafts you can inflate. It says you can play football with the processors right behind your ears. I thought you’d have to take them out for sure, like you do for swimming.”

  Landon nodded because he already knew all this, but he didn’t want to dampen his father’s excitement. “That’s awesome.”

  “Let’s see . . .” His father tilted his head back for a better look. “We measure your head . . .”

  “I can get the tape measure from the garage.” Landon was already up and going. When he returned he was thrilled to see that his father had most of the order form already filled out. They wrapped the tape around Landon’s head.

  “Twenty-four,” his father said. “I’m a twenty-nine. You believe that? Here, let me show you.”

  Landon’s father wrapped the metal tape around his own head as proof, chuckling before he turned his attention back to the screen. “You know, I believe in this whole team thing. I mean, a marching band is like a team. An orchestra? How about that for working together, right? And those things . . .” Landon’s father sat back in his chair and got a faraway look. “Those things are what I remember most. You’re part of something.”

  Landon’s dad looked at him and Landon let their eyes stay connected over the empty space. It wasn’t something he and his father did very much, just look at each other, but it was as if this moment was one they’d both remember, and for some reason it didn’t feel weird. His dad had dark brown eyes and a big forehead. His nose was slightly flattened and his mouth a bit too small for everything else. Looking at him, Landon felt like
he was looking into a mirror, seeing himself in the future.

  “There’s real team spirit,” his father said. “I want you to have that.” Landon’s dad turned back to the iMac and moved through to the purchase screen. He clicked the rush delivery icon, but the earliest delivery for the helmet and skullcap was Saturday, a few days after the start of Landon’s football career.

  “Monday we’ll get you football shoes—cleats,” his dad said. They slapped a high five.

  Neither of them had seen his mother creep up on them, so it startled them both when she barked, “What’s going on here?”

  8

  Landon’s father jumped out of his seat, and the contrast between Landon’s parents was staggering. His father towered, a giant of a man, but his body was soft and slouching like he was made of pillows. He blocked Landon’s mom from the iMac. She glared up at him. Standing straight, her chin barely cleared his father’s belt line, but her eyes fixed on his like a bird of prey.

  “I was uh . . . helping.” His father’s fingers fluttered in front of him.

  Landon sat and watched her peer around him and examine the iMac with growling hostility. Her lips curled away from her teeth. “I see.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, I see.”

  She turned and marched away. Landon looked at his dad, who smiled, saying, “She’ll come around. She’s just worried about you.”

  By Tuesday night she had come around. Landon knew when his mom called his dad from the kitchen. “Forrest? I could use some help here. It turns out this football business is a family affair in Bronxville. I ran into Landon’s coach’s wife, Claire Furster, on the train into work this morning and found out that the mothers are expected to supply something for some sort of bake sale, so I was thinking oatmeal cookies with honey instead of white sugar—something partially healthy at least.”

  Landon looked at his dad.

  “Of course.” Landon’s dad hurried off toward the kitchen.

  “And Landon?” His mother pointed at him. “You better get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  9

  On Wednesday morning Landon’s mother left for work on an early train. Her cookies rested in a Tupperware container with the doctor’s clearance and a note taped to the cover for Landon’s father in case she had to work late and couldn’t talk to the football people herself. Genevieve was holed up in her room working at her online French class. She told Landon she wanted him to walk into town with her for lunch at the diner with two of her new friends. Later, she said, they’d all swim at the house.

  Even though school was still over a week away from starting, football practice wasn’t until the evening because the coaches had real jobs, and Landon was up for any distraction that would keep the voices of doubt at bay.

  After Genevieve got acquainted with Megan Nickell, she had used Instagram and Snapchat to make friends with the other seventh-grade Bronxville girls as well. But Landon still wondered how she really did it, how she just barged into people’s lives like a long-lost relative and found them happy to see her.

  Landon tried to read a book, but he kept thinking about football. He put on his new cleats and took them off several times, worrying that they might give him blisters if they weren’t broken in.

  The morning was dragging on. He knew he shouldn’t—because he could see his dad working feverishly—but he couldn’t help it. He grabbed the football off his shelf, wandered into his father’s space, and tapped his shoulder.

  His father jumped. “Whaaa?”

  Landon stepped back. He was used to startling people; it was just part of who he was. He needed to see them to know what they were saying. “Dad?”

  “Landon. Son. I was far away.”

  “Sorry, Dad. Would you throw the football with me?” Landon turned the ball in his hands. “I feel like I need some practice. Even though I’m a lineman, I mean, everybody throws the ball around.”

  “Me? Throw? Uh . . .” His father gave the computer a sad look like it was a friend he’d hate to leave, but then he brightened. “Sure!” Standing and stretching he said, “I can throw you the football and you can help me with a problem.”

  “Okay.” Landon followed his father through the kitchen and out the French doors to the pool area. They went through the gate and stood facing each other on the lawn. Overhead the sun shone brightly between fat white clouds and the tall trees that seemed to whisper. Landon tilted his head up at them and wondered how what he heard sounded different than what his father heard. He fluttered his fingers and pointed up at them.

  His father smiled and fluttered his own fingers. “Yes, that’s right. They’re swishing.” Seeing Landon’s puzzlement, he added, “They sound like waves hitting the shore, but softer swishing.”

  Landon echoed, “Swishing,” trying to fix the sound he heard and the word in his mind. Then he signaled his father to stay put. “You stand here.”

  Landon backed up, cocked his arm, and fired a wobbling pass. As the ball approached, his father brought his two hands together in a clapping motion, winced, and turned his head. The ball punched him in the gut and dropped to the grass. His father stared at it as if it were a bomb that might go off.

  Then his father nodded and scooped it up. “Okay. I can get this,” he shouted.

  Landon thought about the band and the big tuba his father played. That must have taken some skill. Just a different kind of skill.

  Landon jiggled his hands to create a target, and his father reared back with the ball. It flew sideways like a dizzy spaceship. Landon snatched at it, nearly catching hold before it plopped down in front of him.

  His father shrugged. “We’ll get it,” he yelled. “This is why you practice, right? We’re doing good.”

  They heaved the ball back and forth, sometimes getting hold of it, most times not.

  “So,” his father said after a halfway decent pass, “here’s my big problem. Ready?”

  Landon caught the ball, smiled, and nodded that he was ready.

  10

  His father’s large face was flushed and he nodded merrily at Landon. “Okay, so—and this is really exciting, Landon—I was doing some research on names because my main character has an uncle on the planet Zovan and I wanted a name that also meant ‘powerful,’ and I dig and I dig and I find ‘Bretwalda,’ which is what they called the most powerful Saxon kings.”

  His father gave him a questioning look to see if he was following.

  “Uh, okay, I get that.” Landon heaved the ball, happy that his throw wasn’t quite so wobbly. He wasn’t sure where his dad was going with all this, but he was glad they were throwing around the football.

  His father kind of swatted at the ball and ducked at the same time, and then he bent down to retrieve it from the grass. “So, I’m a writer—my mind wanders.” His father waved his hands like magic wands, the football almost small in his huge grip. “And my creative curiosity asks a question: ‘Forrest, what about Dorch? Where did that name come from?’”

  Landon’s dad paused with the ball cocked back. Landon could feel his father’s excitement, and he had to admit that it made him curious too, a name like Dorch. He assumed it wasn’t just a variation on “dork,” which is what several kids in his Ohio school had called him.

  His father threw the ball, a wayward lob, but Landon was able to get his hands on it and pull it proudly to his chest.

  “Dorchester.” His father stood up straight and saluted. “Yes, Dorchester. And, not just Dorchester, but the guards of Dorchester castle, the sons of the sons of the sons and so on . . . bred for what?”

  Landon held the ball and waited.

  His father flung his hands high in the air. “Stature.”

  Landon wrinkled his brow. “Stature? You mean a statue?”

  “No: stature, size. Height.” His father held a hand level with the top of his head. “Girth too.” He patted the beach-ball bulge of his stomach and its impressive girth with both hands.

  Landon looked down at his own hef
ty gut. In football his weight would be an advantage.

  His father waved a hand to get his attention. His face grew serious and he said, “Enter the problem which I’d like you to help me solve.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Return to Zovan is nearly seven hundred pages long, probably halfway finished.”

  “Halfway?” Landon couldn’t imagine anyone reading a fourteen-hundred-page book. That would be like the Bible, or the dictionary, or . . . something.

  “Yes,” his father said. “A very good start with tremendous momentum. As I said, my main character is about to reach Zovan and meet his uncle, who we shall now name Bretwalda. But, a writer has to be inspired, and a writer has to be honest about whether he is truly inspired and . . . well, Dorch inspires me. Don’t you get it?”

  Landon didn’t know what to say. He bought some time by turning the ball over in his hands, searching for just the right grip on the laces, like he’d seen Peyton Manning do on YouTube videos.

  “I want to write a historical novel about Dorchester Castle. I can see it. I can taste it.” His father paced the grass before he turned his attention back to Landon. “I am inspired, Landon, but will it sell? You read as much as anyone . . .”

  “I read kids’ stuff, Dad,” Landon said, begging off and throwing the ball.

  His father nodded excitedly as he muffed the catch, but he didn’t bend down for the ball. “And that’s what this would be—it’s middle grade historical fiction based on our forefathers. Can you imagine the excitement of the librarians? You see, people love the past, but they love it when you can bring it into the future. It’s like Percy Jackson. It’s mythology, only today. Brilliant.” His father paused and then asked, “So, yes or no?”

  Landon looked pointedly at the ball. “Well, how would you bring the story about Dorchester into today?”