I walked out of the office with the other guys, always careful in the gym to act like just another player, even when Coach wasn’t there. The three of us were headed for the parking lot when the sound of one lone ball bouncing made us turn around.
A girl. One I didn’t recognize, with a long brown ponytail and long tan legs. She had a rack of basketballs all set up to shoot threes, even though the girls’ coaches had already gone home.
“I bet she misses,” said Kolt, and sure enough, she did. But she just grabbed another ball and another, like once one ball left her fingers, she was already focused on the next shot. She had great form, and a lot of them were falling.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“New this year. Her name’s Daphne,” Jake said, elbowing me forward. “At least, I think it is. You’d better go check.”
I wanted to. I almost did. But the focus and the rhythm and the rightness of her alone on the court held me back. “Nah,” I said. “Let’s give her some space. You guys need a ride home?”
“I’m good,” Jake said, still watching the girl shoot. “But take Kolt. He needs a shower.”
“Your face needs a shower, Foster. Come on, Seth. I’m starving.”
Kolt and I drove through at Best Burger and spent the next hour playing video games and filling our faces in his basement.
“Best of seven,” Kolt said, chucking his controller onto the couch when I beat him at Madden for the third time. “Or hey, how about we play something I’m actually good at. It’s time to slay some demons, am I right?”
“Nah, I’ve got to get home. Math homework.”
Kolt belched. He didn’t quite have the range that Jake had, but it was still pretty impressive. “You wouldn’t even have math homework tonight if you hadn’t signed up for honors. You know that, right?”
“I know, I know. I’m sure I’ll look back and regret not playing more Demon Slayer when I’m making six figures as an engineer.”
“Dude, whatever. I’ll try to remember to come back for you when I’m making seven figures slaying demons after the apocalypse.”
* * *
—
At home, I’d barely had time to start my homework when Coach came through the door, dropped his keys on the counter, and went to the fridge for a beer.
“Taking it easy, huh?”
I stared at him. Could he not see my homework? And wasn’t he the one who told us to get some rest?
“The Foster kid stayed after and shot around for another hour. That kid gets it.”
I set down my pencil, lining it up with the thin red stripe on the side of my paper. “I’ll stay after tomorrow. My shoulder was tight today, so I wanted to be smart about that.”
“You can be smart and tough. There are ways to play through a sore shoulder. I want you in the weight room too. Three times a week. And fix your form, for hell’s sake. There are mirrors in there for a reason. No wonder your shoulder’s sore when you lift the way you do.” He sat down, setting his beer over the corner of my homework. “We barely had a winning record last year. You know that, right? You know what that means for my job? If we don’t step it up this year in a serious way, they might cut me loose. I’d be taking a real risk putting three sophomores on varsity.”
I watched as a bead of condensation dripped down his bottle and onto my homework, bleeding and blurring the thin red line.
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay if you need to leave me on the sophomore team.”
Coach slammed his fist on the table. “No, it’s not okay. That’s not how the game works. You play at the highest level you can for as long as you can. And then, if you’re lucky, you do the same thing as a coach. You do not get to make your talent smaller to fit into your schedule or to keep from breaking a sweat. You do not decide when you’re done with the game. The game will decide when it’s done with you.”
He picked up his beer, and when my homework stuck to the bottom of the bottle, he peeled it off like skin from a popped blister. “From now on, you never leave the gym before the Foster kid. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, taking the paper from him and pressing it between the pages of my book. I shoved the book into my backpack and walked away, letting him think I was done with this thing I cared about. Knowing I’d come back to it when he turned his attention to basketball again, which never took long.
And I realized: that’s how it was going to be, from there on out. Sometimes, even in a family, you keep secrets from each other.
And sometimes you keep them for each other.
Even in the dim light of the basement, things are beginning to come into focus. Jake remembers a fight with the man—the hand over his mouth, the taste of blood, the bite of the needle in his thigh. But somewhere in there, he’s still got a gap, a gap in the footage.
Jake’s not exactly in the mood for metaphors, but that night he dreams his life is literally written in a book. He grabs the spine and flips back a few pages, desperate for answers.
What is he doing here? Is it true what the man says, that this was all his idea?
Impossible.
Maybe.
But the pages are missing; there’s a chunk torn out of the middle. He finds the pages scattered along the steps leading out of this basement hellhole. He picks them up as he climbs, gathering them like the programs that litter the bleachers after a game. He stands at the top of the steps, and the door opens before him and the light pours in, illuminating the words as he strains to read them….
There’s one word, floating on glass, that comes back to him: Phoenix.
Is that where he is?
But no. He remembers now: that’s the man’s name. At least, he thinks it is.
Then the man—Phoenix—is back, shaking him awake, handing him the morning pills and a glass of warm water to wash them down. There are flecks of something floating in the glass, though, so Jake swallows the pills without the water. He’ll drink from the sink later.
Unless he can get Phoenix to leave the water. No way is he drinking it, but there are plenty of things he could do with the glass to get himself out of here, one way or another.
“Good,” says Phoenix after Jake swallows the pills. “Now talk to me.”
“What?” Jake asks.
“Talk to me. You know, with words.”
“Talk to you. Are you serious?”
Phoenix rolls his eyes. “We have to trust each other. You have to tell me stuff.”
Now Jake’s mad. “Talk to the person who cuffed me to a pipe? Trust the person who’s kept me in this basement for who knows how long? Crack myself open and spill it all out like you’re my freaking therapist or something?”
“I’d hang fancy diplomas on the wall, but I didn’t earn any.” Phoenix smiles, but only on the surface. Jake can tell he doesn’t want to show the shame underneath the smile. Jake is an expert at smiles like these.
And in that moment, Jake judges him. He looks at the shabby surroundings, Phoenix’s shabby clothes and sunken eyes. Of course a loser like this wouldn’t have graduated. But then he corrects himself.
You don’t have any diplomas, either. And as of last semester, you weren’t exactly on track to earn any.
But that’s not true. There were college scouts. There was interest. Even though Arizona State had screwed him over, there were schools willing to give him another chance in the classroom because of what he could do on the court. All he’d had to do was figure out a way to pass that damn math class so he could graduate.
Well, that was all he’d had to do before the torn-out chapter. Before he missed however many days he’s missed, trapped in this hole.
“Talk to me,” Phoenix says again, the patience in his voice draining quickly as he snaps Jake from his thoughts. “You’re here for me too, you know. I agreed to this so we coul
d help each other, but first we have to trust each other. So spill. It’ll be good for you.”
“Talk to you…What, like tell you how I’m feeling?”
Phoenix shrugs. “Sure, we could start there.”
Jake begins cautiously, like a creature emerging from its den. Tells Phoenix something he already knows. “I’m sick. Running over to take a crap or throw up about every five minutes.”
“Still?” Phoenix asks, almost like he actually cares.
Jake considers. “Well, not now, but for a while there.”
“But it’s getting better?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Phoenix nods. “Good. What else?”
“I have dreams.”
He laughs, the sound bitter as soap. “Don’t we all.”
“Not that kind,” Jake says. “I mean actual dreams, with, like, metaphors and crap like that.”
“You’re not swearing anymore,” Phoenix observes.
Jake wonders how much he swore during the missing chapter. He’s always watched his language, mostly for Luke’s sake. He’s not sure who he is anymore, and the thought makes him angry. “Go to hell,” he says.
The man’s laugh is less bitter this time. “Probably will. Thanks. And how are things going when you’re awake?”
“I’m worried sometimes, sick sometimes, desperate a lot of the time. But I’m bored most of all, and that makes me mad. Because it means I’ve given up on ever getting out of here.”
“Nah,” Phoenix says. “It means you’ve recognized that I’m your way out, and I’ll let you out when I’m ready. When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” Jake says, and this time the man’s laugh is real and deep.
“You are so far from ready you’re not even in the same time zone.”
And there’s something about the way he says it that brings something else to the edges of Jake’s memory.
The championship game.
Climbing the ladder to cut down the net—and almost cutting off his finger because he was watching somebody in the stands instead of watching what he was doing.
Running to the parking lot, hoping he wasn’t too late.
Too late for what?
That’s when he truly recognizes Phoenix, and once he does, he can’t believe he didn’t see it all along.
There’s a knock on the door, loud and insistent, like a crack of thunder. They both freeze, and then Phoenix pulls out the cuffs and presses the latch, swinging them open like jaws.
Jake tenses but doesn’t make a move. Doesn’t even shift his gaze, but takes in the room with his peripheral vision and readies himself for a fight. The water glass is closer to him than to Phoenix.
“Trust me,” Phoenix says again. “Because I’m trusting you.” Then he tosses the cuffs on the cot and runs up the stairs, two at a time.
Finally Jake can turn all this agitation into motion. He pushes the cot under the window and stands on top of it. Only the back end of a car and only the first few painted letters are visible, but it’s enough to know: the police are here.
A Luke fact: 390,127 people in the UK listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 census.
School days got better
and almost normal
after a while,
but Sundays were still
so hungry,
so empty.
Especially when your church has
a special fast for your brother
and you are supposed to not
eat anything,
drink anything,
all day.
I don’t even realize I’m stopping,
staring
into Bishop Gregersen’s office
and the jar of snack-size Kit Kats,
until I hear his voice.
“Come in,” he says.
So I do.
“Have a seat,” he says.
So I do because
the chair is close to the Kit Kats
and it looks like maybe he refilled the jar today.
“You haven’t been in here since
before you were baptized,” he says.
And I remember that he was the one
to baptize me,
to bury me under the water
but also
to bring me back out.
“I have been praying more since Jake left,” I say
because I know he will like that part.
“That’s good,” he says.
He tips the jar toward me,
and I reach in,
hoping it’s not a trap.
“I’m fasting,” I say,
and he nods.
“I am too.
But I thought maybe my fast
could count for both of us.
This is a day for us to do something
for your family.
For the rest of us
to take a little part of this
off your shoulders.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say,
even though I’m not sure
what he means about
the shoulders part.
Then he asks,
“Do you want to talk about Jake?”
“Yes,” I say
as I tear the wrapper open
and snap the bar in half.
Then I take a bite,
and we both wait
wait
wait
until finally he says,
“Jake…
…is a good brother, isn’t he?”
I think about that as I swallow my Kit Kat.
“You said
‘is’
and you almost said
‘was.’ ”
He nods.
“You’re right, Luke. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I say,
and I mean it,
partly because
I’m reaching for another Kit Kat
and I want to keep things
good between us.
I’m still
just as hungry
as before.
“What do you think happened to Jake?” I ask.
Bishop Gregersen runs his hand through his hair
and lets out a long breath
as I down
one Kit Kat
after another.
“I don’t know, Luke.
I’ve been praying about it too,
and I just don’t know.
I wish I did.”
Now I have a fist full of Kit Kats
and a belly that’s even fuller, and
I’m starting to feel a little sick,
but I keep talking.
“The police think he ran away.
Some people think
he ran away
because he did something bad.”
Bishop Gregersen nods.
“I’ve heard people say those things too.
What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
And then I tell him the other part
that I wasn’t going to tell anyone.
“I’ve been praying to God
and Muhammad
and Buddha.”
I look down and twist the orange-red wrapper
of one of the Kit Kats I haven’t eaten yet
until the crunchy layers crush
when I say the next part.
“I’ve been praying to
the Force too.
I thought if God is real,
maybe He or She or It
wouldn�
��t care so much
about what I call Him or Her or It,
or maybe even which way I pray.”
Sometimes things make sense in my head,
but when I say them out loud,
they sound
so
stupid.
“But now I think
God isn’t answering
because whichever way is right,
the rest of the ways are wrong,
and that’s making God mad.
I’m making God mad.”
“No, Luke.
I don’t think anybody in heaven or on earth
is mad at you right now.”
I squeeze with both fists
until everything is ruined.
It feels good to crush something with my fingers
and let the dark side win for a minute.
Bishop Gregersen looks at the mess I’ve made.
And he slides the jar closer to me.
He really does.
Even though I already ate some
and ruined more.
And maybe that’s why I’m not afraid to ask him
what maybe I really came here to ask him.
“What if those people are right?” I ask.
“Will God be mad if Jake did something bad?
And then he ran away from it?”
Bishop Gregersen shakes his head.
“I don’t think so.
I think God feels a little like we do.
Like He wants to help.”
“So if God isn’t mad at any of us,
why isn’t anything getting better?”
“Maybe it is,” he says.
“Maybe it’s like Star Wars,
and we can’t see what’s going on
in that part of the story.
Maybe if we could flash to Jake’s part of the story,
we’d understand.”
I am glad he knows Star Wars
and even more glad
he might be right.
“Like Luke on the island,”
I say.
“How he wasn’t who he had been
or who he thought he needed to be,
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