Cracking the Bell

by Geoff Herbach

  I loved my Sundays. I loved my time with Grandma, even the church part, because the pastor is smart and funny. I enjoyed listening to him.

  But on that Sunday, the idea of getting up, getting out of bed, showering, putting on clothes tighter fitting than gym shorts? Felt impossible. I could barely move.

  So, I was pleased when Mom knocked on my door and said, “I called Grandma. I told her you were sick, couldn’t make it today.”

  “Good, thanks. Maybe we can still go over and watch the Packers with her later.”

  “Sure, Isaiah. I probably won’t. I’ve got some work. But you can if you’re feeling like it.”

  The light from the hallway haloing Mom bothered me, so I turned over and faced the wall.

  “Isaiah?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “I would like it if you got up, though. Maybe we can go to Country Kitchen for breakfast?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to.” We did lots of breakfasts at Country Kitchen, and I loved them, but the idea made me sick now.

  “No. It’s important to me,” Mom said. “I’d like us to talk this morning.”

  I breathed deep. I did not want to go.

  “Start moving,” Mom said. “You’ll feel better.”

  Even though I felt like an empty candy wrapper left in an old winter coat pocket, I knew the real me, should that Isaiah ever return to my body, would want to convince Mom that everything was all right so she wouldn’t worry. “I do feel better,” I said. “Just sleepy.”

  Twenty minutes later, we drove across town to Country Kitchen. I tried to be normal.

  “Was Grandma Gin mad that I wasn’t picking her up for church?”

  “No. She said she might skip herself. Apparently last week’s sermon irritated her.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was there.”

  “What liberal assault did the pastor unleash?” Mom asked.

  “Something from the New Testament. Like, blessed are the peacemakers or something.”

  “Ha. What a communist.”

  “Threat to American values, he is,” I said.

  Easily a third of my conversations with Mom involved making jokes about Grandma Gin’s “political conservatism.” My aunt Melinda left her husband a couple years ago because she got romantically involved with a woman (she’s still with her—Judy Gunderson—she’s a nurse in the hospital in La Crosse where Melinda works). Grandma Gin took Melinda’s husband’s side. Grandma Gin won’t speak to Melinda, which has caused another break in a family full of brokenness. Still, it felt like a lie to make easy political jokes about Grandma like that, but the jokes filled Mom with glee, so I participated. If Grandpa John were still around, things would be different.

  In the restaurant, we sat in one of those little two-person booths. Squeezed in. I tried to choke down the bacon, broccoli, and cheese omelet I’d ordered, even though it tasted like sand. I felt like strewn garbage shivering in the wind. It didn’t help that Mom was silent the moment we sat down. Her eyes stayed glued to a spot a few inches left of my forehead. She was very still while I shook. She didn’t eat her sausage-and-onion scramble. Finally, after I finished choking down my breakfast, I felt obligated to engage.

  I tried to focus the thoughts in my cracked bell, picked up a piece of raisin toast, and pointed it at her. I used the jokey tone that she appreciates. “Sooo . . . you wanted to talk? Better do that before I pass out from this butter overdose.”

  She sniffed. “That’s right,” she said. “You’re right. I’m just having a hard time with this.”

  “With what?”

  “Isaiah, you know how much I’ve been through in the last five years.”

  “I do. It’s been bad.”

  “I’ve lost so much.” She shook her head. “Too much for a woman my age.”

  “I know.”

  “And now you hear witch whistles in your head? Witch whistles, Isaiah? What the hell is that?”

  “I don’t hear the whistles very often.”

  “That’s not what you told the doctor yesterday.”

  “Really. I hear whistling very rarely.” I didn’t mention the girl screaming or the pounding or the ringing or the winds that whipped dried grasses and garbage.

  Mom turned. She looked out the window to her right. “You should never hear whistles in your head.” She swallowed, took in a sharp breath. “We have bad luck in this family. I don’t know why. It’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?” I said.

  “You can’t invite more bad luck. You can’t just open the door wide.”

  “I’m not opening a door,” I said.

  She turned back, faced me. “Second impact syndrome, Isaiah?”

  “What?”

  “Death. Or permanent brain damage. This is what you get from football?”

  “Millions of people play football, Mom. I’m not going to die.”

  “Some of them die, Isaiah!” Mom said, volume dialed up.

  An old couple at the neighboring table paused midbite, like synchronized swimmers suddenly stuck in the middle of a routine. They turned toward us.

  “Isaiah,” Mom whispered. “I’m not going to let you die on a football field.”

  “I’m not going to die on a football field.”

  “That’s right, because I’m not going to let you play anymore.”

  The old couple leaned toward us, to get their ears closer.

  And I couldn’t process. It didn’t make sense.

  “Really, honey. You can’t play football anymore,” she said quietly. “We don’t know what you’re doing to your brain. People die. Even later in life. People die from this. That man from the Bears? What’s his name from San Diego? Junior Seau? People die. And you’re hearing that brain damage in your head, sweetie. It’s whistling at you. People really die.”

  “I know they die,” I said. “I know lots of people die.” The whistling rose. Wind ripped across ridges, picked up dust and sand. The crying rose.

  Mom pulled in a breath through her nose. She sat up straight. “I can talk to Coach Reynolds, if you want. I can tell him what happened and why we’ve come to this decision. You don’t have to bear the burden, Isaiah. I know this isn’t easy. But your life is more valuable than a high school football game.”

  Crying witches. “We could win state,” I said.

  “Your life is more valuable than winning state,” she said. “Do you want me to call Coach Reynolds? We can have him over this afternoon, if you want.”

  “No. Just wait. Just please let me think, okay?” I said. It wasn’t just winning state. It was so much more than winning any game. It was my whole past. It was my future.

  “Okay, but we’ve made this decision already. Do you understand?”

  I shut my eyes. The room spun, accelerated, until it whipped around me, a tornado.

  “We have to go home,” I said.

  CHAPTER 8

  WHEN FOOTBALL STARTED

  The whole weekend before the football season started, Joey Derossi kept telling me that my sport wasn’t a big deal and I should stop making it such a big deal. So I wrote this:

  “If you don’t play, you go back to Muscoda. Your mother and I can’t parent you.”

  Isaiah and his dad sat in the front seat of Dad’s car in the lot at the Belmont Tower County Park. Rain blasted down on the roof.

  “For how long?” Isaiah asked. He was scrawny, out of shape for a fourteen-year-old. He smoked menthol cigarettes, for God’s sake.

  “Just give football a chance. I’m not saying you have to play forever.”

  “No. How long would you send me up to Muscoda?”

  Dad shook his head, shut his eyes. “You’ll stay there until you go to prison or turn eighteen,” he said.

  Isaiah was a time bomb. You become what you do. He so often sought destruction he had become a bomb. “Fine,” Isaiah said. “Muscoda it is.”

  “Wrong answer,” Dad whispered. He let his forehead fall
against the steering wheel.

  The next morning, Dad drove Isaiah to the high school instead of to Muscoda. “Get out of the car,” Dad said in the parking lot.

  “And do what?” Isaiah asked.

  “Go to the locker room and tell the coach you’re here. Now. Get out.”

  Isaiah still isn’t sure how it happened. Why didn’t he just run off? Was there divine guidance? Who knows? But he did it. He got out, slammed the door, and walked one foot after the other into the coaches’ offices.

  He was terrified. He’d see classmates.

  He hated Riley Johndrow—the muscle-headed blond kid—and Josh Penney—the curly-haired kid everyone called Twiggs due to his long arms and legs. Those guys were not only stupid; they had been mean to him, even in the terrible months after Hannah’s death. In fact, one time the previous October, after Isaiah (who was a dick—he couldn’t help it) tripped him in the hall, Riley Johndrow had grabbed Isaiah by the back of his shirt, flipped him onto the ground, and put his forearm across his neck. He’d whispered to Isaiah, “I don’t care if your sister did die. You mess with me again, and I will destroy you.”

  “You’re pathetic, dude,” Twiggs had said, standing above.

  Even though it was the middle of the day, Isaiah had left the school building, wandered downtown.

  Riley and Twiggs were as shocked to see Isaiah show up on the first day of freshman football practice as Isaiah was to be there. All the players in his class were shocked. Bluffton is a small enough town that they all knew what Isaiah was—a burner, a druggie, a rando.

  Isaiah was treated as such by the equipment manager, who gave him a helmet that didn’t fit right and shoulder pads that were too big. The Velcro on his belt was worn out, so his pants sagged. He looked like a little kid dressed up for Halloween.

  A half hour later, the freshman coach, Mr. Trouten, used a language Isaiah didn’t understand to describe what they’d be doing on that field.

  Isaiah stared at the ground. Two days earlier he had been drunk in a cornfield, making out with Grace. And suddenly this? Dressed like an idiot in the August heat while a bunch of shit-smelling jocks stood around glaring at him?

  Just walk away, Isaiah thought.

  “Line up here, son,” Coach Trouten said. He pointed to the back of a line of kids.

  Isaiah couldn’t tell you why he went where Trouten had pointed. But one foot after another and there he was standing, waiting. There were giant pads (tackling dummies, he found out they were called) being held by assistant coaches (these young, muscular dudes from Bluffton College). Fear made Isaiah pay attention. The freshmen ballers in front of him did the following: On “go” (a coach shouted, go), they sprinted to the right, punched one of the big pads with both hands, then sprinted back to the left and decked the other dummy, tackled the thing, pushed themselves off the ground fast, and ran to the back of the line.

  Isaiah now understands the drill simulates shedding a blocker (first dummy), then exploding into a ball carrier (second dummy). He had no idea what was going on then, though.

  It came to his turn. His heart pounded. Adrenaline rose. He sprinted to the first dummy and didn’t break down, just fell into it, then pushed himself off from on top of the dummy and sprinted to the other, leaped from too far away and hit the college assistant at the same time as the pad. The dude shouted, “Ow!” because Isaiah’s helmet had crunched the guy’s knuckles. Everyone laughed. Isaiah filled with rage (but also, oddly, felt some relief at hearing the coach’s knuckles knock against the hard shell of the helmet).

  While he waited in line for his next turn, Coach Trouten came over and said, “Watch how Riley breaks down before he sheds the block.” Isaiah watched Riley sprint up to the dummy, quickly crouch, then deliver the punches, before cutting hard and running through the other tackling dummy. “See how he uncoiled only when he got to the target? No jumping, son. Explosion on the ball carrier.”

  “Ball carrier,” Isaiah said.

  The next time through, Isaiah breathed deep through his nose to focus—something he had learned to do at the group home a month earlier. He heard go. He copied exactly what Riley had done. Sprint, crouch, punch, cut, sprint, uncoil. No one laughed this time. There was a distinct popping sound when Isaiah shed the blocker, another crisp pop when he hit the tackling dummy. In fact, there was actual quiet after his turn.

  He didn’t even have cleats yet. He wore Vans.

  An hour later, when they did a live tackling drill, Isaiah uncoiled on a sophomore kid so hard the kid took a half minute to regain his breath. The silence was palpable. Coach Reynolds, who was the new varsity coach at the time, had been watching. “What’s your name?” he asked (even though Isaiah’s name was written on a piece of tape on his helmet).

  “Isaiah Sadler,” Isaiah mumbled.

  “The evil one,” Matty Weber whispered.

  Coach Reynolds glared at Matty. Silence again. He turned back to Isaiah. “I talked to your father yesterday, right? I understand why he wants you to play. Natural hitter.”

  “Uh-huh,” Isaiah said. And he felt pride, this glow, rise in his chest. He liked that feeling.

  By the end of the first practice, everyone on the team was afraid of him and not because he was “the evil one.” Riley came up to him in the locker room and said, “You’re like Chuck Cecil.” It was an obscure reference. No way Riley expected Isaiah to know that he was talking about a human missile, a safety (like Isaiah ended up being), who played for the Green Bay Packers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But Grandma Gin’s TV room was a Green Bay Packers shrine, and Isaiah had studied the football cards she kept in frames there. He’d read all the Packers yearbooks she’d collected.

  “They called Cecil the Scud,” Isaiah replied.

  Riley stared at Isaiah for a moment, then said, “He was like a missile who sometimes missed. But when he hit, it was total destruction.”

  Isaiah nodded. “A Scud was a Russian missile. I googled that back in sixth grade because of Chuck Cecil. The Packers are very educational.”

  Riley smiled with the side of his mouth, nodded.

  Isaiah suddenly didn’t hate him. That was all it took.

  A week later, Riley’s dad began picking Isaiah up at 6 a.m. so he could lift weights with Riley and Twiggs, who made goofy-ass jokes, who Isaiah continued to hate until their third game, when Twiggs caught a touchdown pass with twenty-two seconds left, which beat Richland Center’s freshman team by two. Then Isaiah loved him. The whole team piled on top of Twiggs in the back of the end zone, screaming for joy. They were flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, but nobody cared. They couldn’t help themselves.

  After the fourth game, Isaiah asked Dad for a new phone number, so that his criminal friends, Ben and Reid, couldn’t get ahold of him, so Grace couldn’t text him. Dad took Isaiah to the Verizon store in Dubuque.

  And Isaiah felt new. He began running gassers after weight lifting, began watching football on TV all weekend (college with Dad on Saturdays, pro with Grandma and Mom on Sundays), began playing Madden with Riley and Twiggs until midnight every Saturday night, began watching technique videos on YouTube when he was alone. Football became his still point, the way he made sense of the world.

  After he accidentally broke his phone by stepping on it (it was under a pair of gym shorts) and couldn’t watch drills on YouTube for a week, he started cleaning his room. He began doing his own laundry.

  He had so much laundry due to all the workout clothes Mom had bought him. Mom seemed so proud of him. She actually watched him fold his laundry several times. “You’re a different kid, aren’t you?” she asked. He said yes. He said he was different. She bought him books about football, biographies of the greats, encyclopedias of terms, coaching books about different kinds of offenses he might face, about running 4–3 defense, 3–4, 4–2–5. He went to bed early, a book in hand. He got up early to work out.

  And as long as he kept his schedule, his mind felt clear, and crisp. He felt like the new kid
, the different Isaiah, the second Isaiah. But if he took even a day off, didn’t read the books Mom gave him, didn’t work out, his former dark thoughts would begin to emerge, and he’d feel that tiredness and sadness and he’d crave things (like the crazy stuff he did with Grace or a chemical buzz of another kind).

  So, after a while, he stopped taking any days off. He began to see a future. There could be college? There could be an ensuing adulthood? No doubt football would be at the center of everything. It challenged his mind (learning all these high school, college, and pro defenses and committing to memory these hugely complex offenses). It exhausted him (a physically wiped Isaiah is a happy Isaiah). And most important, it thrilled him. Winning games with his teammates on the macro level. On the micro: big hits, turnovers, explosive plays that saved the day, that shot adrenaline through every part of him.

  He made healthy breakfasts for himself every morning for those plays. He went to school for those plays. He went to bed for those plays. He lived for those plays.

  He might be a thrill junkie. He might be an addict.

  If he is, being a football addict is good. He stopped looking for thrills off the field. His emotions were channeled. His work habits spread into the classroom. He loved his friends. He loved his parents, even as they continued their post-Hannah disintegration. In fact, the more trouble his parents had, the closer he got to Mom. Isaiah and Mom stopped fighting. They began joking with each other, having a movie night each Tuesday, planning trips they might want to take. Mom took him over to Bluffton College to meet with the coaches there. They run a decent Division III program and were excited by the prospect of having a local kid, a professor’s kid (because Dad teaches engineering at the college), a player of his talents and passion, who would essentially have a free ride to the college due to his dad’s employment, in their recruiting sights. He didn’t commit. Dad wouldn’t let him commit. But it was a commitment in his mother’s mind. That seemed okay to him. Why not stay and play?