With the state championship on the line the following night, the team had practiced in shorts under the lights, run through formations and special teams, and then watched some game film. After practice, a couple of us had gone out for burgers and then I’d dropped Audrey off at her house. My mom had gone to bed so I was sitting in our den studying game film when the phone rang. It was Wood, and judging by the background noise, he was not at home.
“I need your help.”
Something loud passed near or behind him. The phone crackled and drowned him out. I read the clock on the wall. “Where are you?”
“Pay phone. Near the old Apiary warehouse. Get here quick.”
“What are you—”
“I’ll explain when you get here.”
The phone clicked, and I grabbed my truck keys. Eight minutes later, I pulled off the hard road onto a gravel path that led out behind the old warehouses backing up to the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. I mumbled to myself, The only thing out here this time of night is trouble. Wood saw my headlights, walked out of the bushes, and flagged me down. Just behind him, a hundred or so yards in the distance, I could see the reflection of lights in the warehouses, which was unusual given that nobody had used them in a few decades.
When Wood got in the truck, he was sweating and looked genuinely scared. He pointed. “That way.”
I shook my head and put the truck in park. “Wood, what in the world is—”
“Ginger. She’s in trouble. Or about to be. Called me and wanted me to pretend to be her boyfriend. Real muffled tone, slurred words, trying not to be heard. I parked over there and snooped around enough to know that I’m not walking in there by myself.” At the time, Wood was six foot three and 285 pounds. If he didn’t want to walk into an abandoned warehouse, I didn’t either.
“What’s in the warehouse?”
“Bunch of guys in this alternative-punk, heavy-metal, paint-your-face-and-chew-the-head-off-the-neighbor’s-dog band. All of them look closer to thirty than twenty, like they’ve been partying hard for as long as we’ve been playing ball. Lots of tattoos—couldn’t see a square inch of skin that didn’t have ink on it. Maybe the band is a front for crystal meth or coke or whatever. Anyway, she said she met the lead at some bar. He told her they were filming a music video here tonight. Said there’s going to be one heck of a party after. Wanted her to”—Wood made quotation marks with his fingers—“ ‘star’ in the video.” Wood frowned. “From what I saw, they’re planning on doing some videoing, but it’s got nothing to do with music. They got a good bit of white powder on a table in there, and I saw a guy holding a needle. Seemed like he was explaining to Ginger why she should try it.” He paused. “She’s not dressed, and they’re being pretty rough with her. One guy has a pistol shoved in his waistband.”
I looked Wood squarely in the face. “Is everything you’re telling me true?”
He held up a hand. “God’s honest.”
“Did you have anything to do with this?”
“I dropped her off.”
“Have you done anything illegal that I need to know about before I stick my neck out?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I climbed out of the truck, stepped into the public phone booth, and dialed 911. When the operator answered, I said, “This is Matthew Rising. I need to speak with Captain Roberts. Ring him at home if you need to.”
“Hold, please.”
Captain Roberts had a son named Kerry who was two years ahead of me and had been my tight end during my freshman and sophomore years. Kerry and I had spent some time on the field throwing routes and patterns, so I knew him well enough to expect his dad to know me and take my call. Two seconds passed, the phone clicked several times, and Captain Roberts picked up. He was not in a good mood. “Matthew, it’s late.”
“Sir, you need to send several officers down to the old Apiary along the tracks. And, sir, I need them right now.”
His tone changed. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”
“I will when you get here, but in short it involves a good bit of drugs and some guys doing some stuff to a girl that she doesn’t want done to her.”
“Who’s the girl?”
Kerry and Ginger had gone on a couple of dates so I had an idea he’d know her. “Ginger.”
“Are you in any danger?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
I heard a door open in the background and he muttered something to someone. “Where are you?”
“In the pay phone, where the hard road turns to dirt.”
“Give us ten minutes.”
I hung up, returned to the truck, cut off all the lights, and sat there. It didn’t take me long to realize we might not have ten minutes. I slid the stick into gear and slowly idled down the road. Wood asked, “What’s your plan?”
“Don’t really have one.”
Wood looked at me, somewhat dubious. “I know you’re you and all that. And everybody knows you, and you’re getting pretty used to folks rolling out the red carpet for you. But these guys don’t care who you are. They’re hard core.”
“I believe you.”
We pulled up to the warehouses and parked just out of earshot. I quietly shut the door and Wood stood alongside. I could hear several male voices, a female voice laughing, and another female voice that did not sound like she was having fun. I whispered, asking Wood, “Ginger?”
He nodded. All I could see was the whites of Wood’s eyes. “You going in?”
“Well, I’m not about to sit here and listen to that.”
Wood slapped himself in the face twice, shook his head, rolled up his sleeves, and jogged up alongside me. He put his hand on my back. “If pushing comes to shoving, don’t hit anybody with your right hand.”
I nodded. “Good advice.”
Wood and I had been in a few scraps together but most had been in football games. Nothing like this. We were high school football players, not heroes. We approached from the railroad tracks, which turned out to be in our favor because when we rounded the corner all of the lights of the stage, or loading dock, were facing from our direction and into their eyes, which gave us a few seconds’ advantage. I counted five guys. A girl. And Ginger. Only two of them had their clothes on and not much at that. Ginger had slid off a dirty couch and was lying on a blanket on the floor. Some guy was sitting next to her. Rows of white powder covered one table along with various needles, a lighter, and a piece of rubber tubing. Judging by the look in Ginger’s eyes, she was flying in another stratosphere.
She was also scared.
I didn’t like Ginger. Never had. She’d always annoyed me, so I kept my distance. Add to that the eyebrow-splitting sucker punch seven weeks prior and I had reason enough for not being there. Regardless, a quick look around told me that she was in way over her head and couldn’t talk her way out of this one. I strolled in with a smile on my face, rubbing my hands together with my best nerd I’m-just-here-for-the-party impression. “Hey, guys.”
The friendly tone of my overly excited voice caused them to question whether I was here to party or cause trouble. I knew it wouldn’t last long. The first guy—the one sitting on the ground with a smear of white powder under his nose—stood up directly in front of me. I pointed at Ginger and tried to laugh. “Looks like the party’s already started.”
They looked confused—both by what I was saying and by not being able to place my face. They knew they knew me, they just couldn’t get the pieces to click amid the fog of the drugs. Ginger held out a hand, but her eyes weren’t really looking at me nor did the smile on her face make me believe that she was enjoying herself. Wood managed a big, stupid, goofy-looking, Three Stooges smile and reached out a hand to Ginger. “Hey, baby.”
Ginger stood. “Heyyyy, Woooooodyyyyy.”
Off to my left, a muscular, bald-headed guy, obviously the leader, began a brisk walk in my direction. He was about five ten, and real fit. H
e’d pumped a lot of iron and probably consumed a lot of steroids to stay that way. He wore only a pair of tattered blue jeans and his chest, neck, and face were almost entirely covered in tattoos. The most striking was a series of flames—some of which looked like long, slender hands with veins—rising up his chest and neck and onto his face. One of the flames wound up his cheek, around his temple, and then fanned out over one ear and behind the back of his head. He looked like Queequeg meets the Incredible Hulk. Wood had been right; the pistol was tucked in his waistband for all the world to see. Judging by the speed of his walk and the look in his eyes, he was the one individual in this group who had not consumed any of the hallucinatory drugs. He was crystal clear and not buying my pocket-protecting, white-tape-around-the-glasses routine.
He stepped between myself and Ginger and was about to put a hand on Wood when I decided our best defense was to play offense. In a game, it’s called a “quick count” and it’s where you snap the ball before the defense is ready. I never said a word. I put my legs into it. The kinetic chain started in my toes, and I hit him as hard as I could on the right side of his face with my left hand. When I did, he crumpled and I felt a bone break both in his face and in my hand. The guy with the white powder feathering his nose watched me knock out his friend, swigged from a whiskey bottle, and then tried to stand. But he couldn’t find his balance and fell back over the couch.
Everybody else was too stoned to react, so Wood picked up Ginger in one arm, her dress in the other, and fireman-carried her to the truck. When we got her in the front seat, she started crying and hanging all over me and saying how she was sorry. I didn’t understand most of what she was saying. I shoved her off on Wood and we spun gravel and mud all the way back to the hard road where Captain Roberts was just arriving with five cars. Between the warehouse and the corner, my hand had swelled to the size of a catcher’s mitt.
Given my growing local celebrity status, the Brunswick emergency room came to life as I carried Ginger through the sliding glass doors. When I set her on the bed and attempted to leave, Ginger clung to me and refused to let go while they examined her. The doctor obliged and nurses moved around me. It took only seconds to learn that Ginger was too stoned to understand her own medical condition. Hence, the doctor entrusted that information to me. An hour later, reading from a toxicology report, he said she had enough drugs in her system to kill a small horse and, in fact, that among an indiscriminate cocktail of other drugs, a horse tranquilizer had been used.
I looked down at now-sleeping Ginger. “Horse tranquilizer?”
He nodded. “Inexpensive and common, black market date-rape drug. Seeing more of it weekly.” He went on to explain that the drug was most often used by guys who wanted to knock a girl out for about twelve hours and cause her to forget the events of the evening. He said they’re in a class of drugs called ‘amnesiacs.’ Victims woke groggy with no recollection or memory of any of the events that had occurred. He said someone had probably slipped Ginger the drug in a drink or something liquid, and he doubted she’d have any memory of that night’s events. Further, he continued, depending upon the dose, the drug could even erase memories that occurred prior to consuming the drug. Meaning, Ginger would wake in the hospital tomorrow morning and possibly need an explanation as to why she was there. As he was finishing writing notes in Ginger’s chart, he looked at my hand. “How’s the other guy?”
“Sleeping.”
He nodded. “I believe it.” He set down his clipboard, and I tried not to wince as he examined me. When finished, he glanced up at the clock on the wall and then at me over the top of his glasses. It was after midnight. “You starting tonight?”
I nodded.
“Any chance I could convince you to sit this one out?”
I shook my head.
His squinted one eye. “How tough are you?”
I answered honestly. “Not as tough as everyone thinks.”
He pointed at my hand. “I’ve got to set this or—” He gently touched places on the back of my hand with a sterile probe. “This bone will affect that artery and that nerve, which will in turn greatly interfere with your ability to one day hold your wife’s hand, open a door, or zip up your pants.” I didn’t like where this was going. He continued, “So I can either put you to sleep, fix it in a few minutes right now and you can wake up rested and happy tomorrow morning with a few pins and screws in your hand, in which case you won’t be playing anything tomorrow night, or you can be stupid, I can set it right here, and you can take your chances tomorrow night and hope you don’t injure it further.”
“If you operate tonight, how long am I out?”
He weighed his head side to side. “Four to six weeks.”
“And if I take my chances?”
He frowned. “If you injure it tomorrow night, the pain will be more than you can probably stand, and you’ll be back here tomorrow night begging me to do what I’m telling you I should do now.”
“And if I don’t injure it?”
“There is a chance, albeit slight, that the bone can heal and you’ll make it to college without my having to cut on you.”
Wood was sitting about three feet away, and he started shaking his head. “Matty, don’t be a hero. Let him operate. I’ll call your mom. Don’t jeopardize college. We’ve got Squeezey and we’ll be fine.”
Squeezey was our backup quarterback. I liked Squeezey. He had the potential to be a good quarterback but he was not at that time, and if we tried to play Friday night with him as starting QB, we’d lose. Badly.
Apparently, Wood—feeling guilty for involving me in something that now had real consequences—had already called Audrey, because at that moment she walked into the room. She took one look at my hand, slid her arm in mine, and leaned forward. “Doctor, don’t do whatever he tells you.”
I looked at the doc. “Set it.”
The rest of the night was not fun, and I didn’t get much sleep.
The hospital kept Ginger overnight. Miraculously, Ginger appeared at the game the following night—in her cheerleading uniform. We heard via the gossip grapevine that she had no memory of last night’s events. I wasn’t sure whether that was true amnesia or convenient amnesia. Regardless, she didn’t say anything to me prior to the game. Through all four quarters of the game, she cheered as if nothing had happened. Wood worked himself into a frenzy protecting me and more importantly my left hand. I didn’t need it to throw, but he felt guilty and he didn’t want the story of an injury to jeopardize college. After the game, I walked out of the locker room. I had slid my left hand into the large front pocket of my sweatshirt—both to protect it and because I had it wrapped in ice and I didn’t want scouts or anyone else to see it and start asking questions. Ginger stood off to one side, in a shadow, which was unusual as she loved the spotlight. Audrey was walking toward me. Ginger approached first and slid her arm in mine. She then slid her hand down my left arm and into my pocket and the bag of ice. She held it there, watching Audrey approach. “You love her, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Is it real?”
I nodded.
She turned to me, looking up. Audrey was twenty feet away. She whispered, “Any chance you’d share that?” She glanced at Audrey. “She’d never know.”
“Ginger, I’m sorry about last night. I feel for you. And I’m your friend, but—”
“Tainted goods?”
“Naive? Yes. Tainted? I wouldn’t say that.”
“So you disapprove of me?”
“It’s got nothing to do with approval.”
“What then?”
I shook my head.
Faking a smile, she pulled herself closer, brushing against me. “What!”
“Ginger, I think you have a tendency to make some bad decisions and want what’s not yours.”
She gripped my arm, but rigidity replaced feigned tenderness. “Then why’d you show last night?”
“Because Wood called me.”
“You do
whatever Wood asks?”
“He’s earned my trust.”
She recoiled further. “Do you trust me?”
“No.”
She nodded, a frown spreading across her face. Audrey was almost within earshot. Ginger squeezed my hand with a catlike strength that surprised me. The pain was intense, shot through me like a knife, and nearly buckled my knees. “Who’s naive now?”
The smile fell off her face, her eyes turned a steely cold, and whatever life had been there drained out.
Ginger turned her back to us and disappeared into the crowd. Audrey reached me, gently locked her arm in mine, and we watched in silence as Ginger worked the crowd. Audrey shook her head. “That girl is poison.”
I nodded.
Audrey turned me toward my truck. “How about I buy you a cheeseburger and you tell me just exactly what is going on here.”
“I’ll tell you what happened, but I’m not sure I know what’s going on.”
A week later, for reasons unknown to us, Ginger dropped out of school and disappeared.
Four years would pass before I’d see her again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ray and I sat on the cabin porch, drinking coffee, and he filled me in on Dalton Rogers. A rising senior, Dee was six foot three, 195 pounds, 4.5 speed. He had not been invited to any camps and no schools had expressed interest in him. He threw five touchdowns in one game his freshman year, and midway through his sophomore year he was on track to surpass my single-season sophomore yardage totals. While not undefeated, he’d shown moments of real brilliance. He was winning, in some cases by a lot. Ray hovered over his coffee. “Folks around here are beginning to think they might have someone they can believe in again.”
“You mean, someone who will erase the memory of me.”
Ray blew the steam off his coffee. “Exactly.”
Dee’s trouble started when he returned to camp his junior year to discover that the newly hired coach of St. Bernard’s, Damon Phelps, had bumped him down on the depth chart and decided that his son, Marcus, would start.
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