Thoughts & Prayers

by Bryan Bliss

I blow on the taco meat and shrug like what I’m about to say is no big deal.

  “Yeah. I might mess around and drop fifty on them.”

  “Good. Those kids from Maiden were pricks even back when I was in school,” Dad says.

  “Ronnie . . .”

  “What? Do you remember the way that one kid—they called him Mantooth or some shit—tried to take my knee out in the conference championship game junior year? I swear they teach those kids to be dirty from the moment they step on the court. Hell, probably when they come out of their mommas!”

  That makes Mom laugh. She sits down at the table and picks up her puzzle magazine, cocking her head to the side as she reads through the different clues. My phone buzzes and before it’s even out of my pocket, Dad is shaking his head.

  “Tell that boy you’ve got a game tomorrow,” he says, smiling.

  “You know who wears the pants in this relationship,” I tell him, and Dad laughs.

  They both love Tyler but aren’t like some parents, inviting boyfriends on family trips. Not that I’d ever give them any reason to think that my relationship with Tyler might throw me off the course I’ve been following since the first time I picked up a ball.

  A scholarship. Didn’t matter where. Anything that can take me away from this small town—even if I wasn’t always sure I wanted to leave. It’s not fear, not really. But I love living in Hickory, NC. I love how I know every back road, every stitch of this county. And I love the idea of being just down the road from my parents, with my own kids someday, piling everybody in the car for Christmas morning on the same wooden floors I opened gifts on for my entire life.

  “I’m going to my room,” I tell them, looking down at my phone as I stand up.

  “Make sure you don’t stay up too late, okay?” Mom says.

  I lean down and give her a hug, holding it long enough that she gives me a look, a quick check-in that I dismiss with a big but tired small. And then I take my buzzing phone and walk down the hallway.

  It buzzes four more times before I’m in my room and I look at the messages.

  How was practice?

  You know, Coach Harris really likes me. I can tell.

  ???

  . . .

  Don’t ghost me, Boone.

  Instead of typing out a response, I put him on speaker phone and let it ring while I start getting my stuff ready for tomorrow’s game.

  “Boooooooone!”

  “Mr. Castigan.”

  “God, you sound just like Hoffman. Please don’t do that ever again unless you want my junk to shrivel up.” He pauses for a second. “Holy shit, Boone, do you have me on speaker phone?”

  “Yes. But I’m in my room.”

  “Oh, sexy. What are you wearing?”

  “I’m going to hang up on you,” I say.

  “Okay, okay. I was just kidding.”

  I lay down on my bed and close my eyes. When Tyler speaks again, I jolt awake—had I been asleep?

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Boone, are you literally falling asleep while I talk to you?”

  “I’m just really tired. Sorry.”

  “You excited about tomorrow?” he asks, his voice suddenly cautious. It’s enough to make me sit up on my elbow, pretty sure I know what’s about to come out of his mouth.

  “Yeah, it’s Maiden. I’m going to wreck them.”

  “And, you know, you’re just going to play?”

  I sigh hard and heavy, picking up my phone to make sure he can hear it. When I first wore the T-shirt, Tyler was still in shock—enough that he didn’t have a strong, or at least verbal, opinion of his girlfriend suddenly finding herself on every website and social media platform. At war with nearly every teacher and administrator in the school.

  But soon, he started making little comments that seemed harmless enough—Are you going to wear your basketball shooting shirt to the pep rally tomorrow? Want to go to the mall and look at clothing? And maybe they were harmless. He’s always been a good boyfriend, especially compared to some of the Neanderthals my friends have dated. But that doesn’t give him permission to decide fundamental things about my life.

  So, I give him one more long sigh. Just so he remembers.

  “Jesus, sorry—I’m just looking out for you,” he says.

  “I’m going to bed,” I tell him. “If you’re lucky, I’ll let you see me tomorrow.”

  He pauses, his tone changing immediately.

  “How exactly am I going to see you?”

  “Good night.”

  And then I hang up the phone and turn it off—maybe for the rest of our relationship.

  Dad is up drinking coffee when I walk into the kitchen the next morning. When he sees me, he kicks a chair out from the table and motions for me to sit down.

  “You ready for tonight?” he asks.

  “Maiden isn’t as good as they were last year,” I say. “They lost that girl who signed with Elon. So, yeah. I think we’re going to whip them.”

  Dad smiles, but it’s pained. I already know what’s coming.

  “There’s going to be a lot of people there,” he says. “People who might not normally show up for a girls’ basketball game.”

  I nod, because how could I not know?

  I’d only gone to one football game this year after having a group of men yell at me—calling me a snowflake, a liberal (like it was a slur), everything you could think—as the crowd, people I’d known for most of my life, laughed and clapped and gave me looks that could cut glass. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of a reaction. Sat there with the same lead in my veins that had made them cheer for me in countless games. Not a whiff of emotion. Just eyes forward, clapping when the team scored and shaking my head at the refs when they deserved it.

  But inside? I was, as Dad likes to say, tore up. I hadn’t worn a shirt in months at that point and would’ve been happy if nobody had mentioned FUCK GUNS or that picture ever again. It didn’t mean I was over it. Or that I wasn’t still angry—because I was. I am. But I’d made a deal with Tyler and the teachers and, I thought, every other person in this town.

  No more FUCK GUNS. We can all get back to normal.

  And yet they still stood up and chanted my name, called me every other one in the book, until halftime finally came and I told Tyler and my friends that I was going to get a hot dog—smiling, smiling—and then I basically ran to my car and roared out of that parking lot faster than you could count to three.

  “It will be fine,” I tell him. “It’s going to be so loud in there, I probably won’t be able to hear anything they say.”

  It must make sense to him because after a second he reaches over and messes my hair, the way he would when I was a kid and still short enough to fit just under his arm.

  “Well, give them hell then. Okay?”

  “What else am I going to do?” I say, but I’m not sure if he’s talking about the other team or the people who, like he said, normally wouldn’t give two drops of piss about a girls’ basketball game.

  When I walk into school, the principal, Mr. Townsend, is standing at the doors, greeting students with his slick politician smile. He doesn’t see me at first, so I try to match the watts of his smile—engage backup generators!—and when his eyes catch mine, I must look like a complete psychopath, all teeth and crazy eyes.

  “Miss Boone” is all he says, looking past me, to the next student who gets an enthusiastic high five.

  Townsend had taken the brunt of the ACLU’s attention. In all honesty, when I looked up their website and sent an e-mail on the general form, I hadn’t been sure anything would come of it. I was still so angry. Maybe if anyone had just asked me why I was wearing the shirt, if they’d just let me wear it without making such a big fucking deal—but it was a big fucking deal, wasn’t it?—it might’ve lasted a week, two at the most. And then it would’ve gotten buried in the back of my closet along with the rest of the news cycle.

  Instead, they tried to stop me. So every single bit o
f muscle memory kicked in and I decided to do what I do best—fight.

  Even then, enough was enough. Once I stopped wearing the shirts, once I pledged to never wear, say, or even think about anything that said FUCK GUNS ever again, I figured the adults would just go back to being adults.

  But every single one of them still looks at me like I spit on Jesus’s tomb, which of course just proves my point—that they care more about their guns than they do about me. About every other kid in this school.

  So, fine. I let it go. I went back to the normal Eleanor that everybody loved.

  The question is: why can’t they?

  Tyler is at my locker and my face must be telling the whole world everything I’m feeling, because he straightens up and starts apologizing immediately.

  “Shit, is this about last night? I was just messing with you. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I say, leaning over and giving him a peck on the cheek. “It’s nothing. I’ll get over it.”

  He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, giving my hair a kiss. He holds me that way for a couple of seconds and it’s all I can do to keep myself from crying, screaming, because sometimes the anger gets watered down just enough that I can’t tell which emotion I’m actually feeling.

  Sometimes I just want to be held, like this, so I can remember what it’s like not to feel constantly tense, constantly ready to attack.

  The ball comes to me and I drive into the lane, taking a step around Katie Light, who is chasing down a missed jump shot from the other side of the court, and kiss the ball off the glass backboard. It drops into the net without a sound and I run to the three-point line, pausing, before I cut back to the top of the key and catch another pass from Coach Thompson, one of the assistants, and put it up: nothing but net.

  “You’ve got it going tonight,” Thompson tells me and she’s right—I’m feeling it.

  “Going for fifty,” I tell her, and she smiles, passing me another ball. It’s barely in my hands when I release the shot. I don’t even watch it go through the net. I jog over to grab some water.

  Some boys from Maiden are sitting right behind our bench and they get started on me immediately, which isn’t abnormal. Every word they say is weak, the kind of trash kids talked in grade school, and for a second I think about turning around and saying something like, “Really? Is that all you’ve got?” But I just drink my water and smile, shaking my head every time they say something that rises past ridiculous and gets to absurd.

  When Coach Thompson comes to the bench, it takes two seconds before she turns around and just stares at them until they finally get up, laughing, and retreat to the back of the bleachers. Thompson played at NC State and is a legit six-foot-three—a woman you don’t mess with.

  “Jackasses” is all she says.

  Coach Harris and the rest of the team come to the bench soon after that, and she gets everybody to circle up.

  “There’s going to be a speaker and then a quick slideshow. So we’ve got some time before tip-off. Keep loose. Drink water. And be ready to play as soon as the lights come up.”

  She gives me a quick glance, but I’m staring at the scoreboard, watching it count down. Waiting for the tip so I can get on the court—the only place where everything else disappears—and do what I’ve come to do.

  Anyway, my focus must make Harris feel better, because she grabs a cup of water and sits on the bench just as Townsend taps a hot microphone, sending feedback through the gym. He clears his throat once before he starts talking.

  “I want to thank everyone coming out tonight for what’s—well, what I hope is just another example of our community having the opportunity to heal.”

  The crowd explodes with applause. The scoreboard has stopped counting down, which means we should throw the ball up. But Townsend keeps talking.

  “When the school board came up with Ford Strong, it took my breath away. Because if there is one word that can be used to describe this community, it’s strong.”

  More applause. Townsend waits for it to die down. He smiles, only half wattage.

  “People always ask me: how do you come back from something like that? And I tell them . . . this. This is what we do. We come together. We don’t let hate stop us. We heal.”

  People are crying now. As Townsend talks, two students bring out a projector and a large screen, setting it up under the basket by the locker room.

  “It looks like Cody and Kellen have our slideshow ready, yes?”

  They give him a thumbs-up and the lights drop out of the gym. Normally a few kids would hoot and holler, but nobody says a word as the projector slowly comes to life. The slideshow begins, the music being cued on a nearby iPhone, with a picture of the high school.

  People clap, whistle. And from there, it’s pictures of the hallways. Kids smiling. The band. The football team. A school play. A picture of Claire, taking a shot in last year’s Maiden game. And then the music shifts and the slideshow fades to black before the first picture comes up.

  Taylor Ann Montgomery, 15

  A second passes, and then the next picture.

  Kevin Anderson, 17

  The third picture.

  Richard Merry, 14

  I can hear people crying. Some of the players on the team are doing their best to keep it together, but Coach Thompson isn’t even trying to pretend. The music swells higher and everybody knows what’s coming before the next slide switches over. And when I see his face, I can’t help myself. I start crying, too.

  Coach “O” (Owen) Faribault, 57

  Coach O’s weathered face stares at the crowd, his grizzled but jovial smile frozen on the screen as the music drops. I didn’t know him the way a lot of kids did. He was the sort of man who would drive kids home, just happening to stop for dinner on the way. Despite being a well-known curmudgeon with a reputation that was tough as nails, there wasn’t a single kid in the school who would’ve said a bad word about the man.

  Three kids, one adult.

  That’s the official number—the one that was reported over and over again. And of course, everybody knows Coach O’s story now.

  How he put dozens of kids inside the wrestling room and, instead of staying with them, ran toward the gunshots, pushing kid after kid back toward the room—telling them to hide, too.

  Pushing me under the stairs. Telling me to quiet down. That it was going to be okay.

  And just as the intruder was coming down the hallway, Coach O dove on top of some kids hiding in a corner. He took six bullets right in the back, dead almost immediately, the news reports told us.

  But not a single one of those kids was hurt.

  The music tapers off and the lights come up suddenly. Every single person in the gym is wiping at their eyes as a local television crew eats it up, filming the crowd, the team—everyone. I wipe my eyes two times before they’re finally dry.

  Principal Townsend clears his throat and, his voice breaking, and said, “Ford Strong, indeed.”

  Chapter Three

  I DON’T GET FIFTY, BUT FORTY-TWO IS CLOSE ENOUGH. I probably could have twenty more but Coach Harris takes me out of the game at the end of the third quarter, all smiles and high fives from the bench.

  We are beating them like they stole something.

  After the game Dad pushes his way through the crowd, and when I see him, his face showing none of the anxiety he’s lived with for the last year, I throw my arms around him and don’t let go until Tyler and Ben and the rest of their idiot friends are jumping around us, nearly knocking everyone to the floor.

  And so maybe that’s why I agree to go to Applebee’s with Tyler and the rest of the idiots, something I never liked doing even before the entire town marked me as Liberal Enemy #1. But in the moment, after playing undoubtedly the best basketball game of my life, the only words on my mind are Screw it.

  So I get in the car with Tyler and I sing along with their terrible music and I order two baskets of fries and a never-ending soda because this is the
first time in months, maybe the entire year, when it feels like nothing can stop me. Not that sophomore from Maiden everybody said might be something. Not the people in the booth across the restaurant, whispering and pointing. Not a single person, not a damn thing.

  “I swear to God,” Tyler says. “You shook that girl from Maiden so bad. Like, she might never play basketball ever again. You didn’t just break her ankles, Eleanor. You broke her soul.”

  I laugh, because it’s true. I may have ruined that girl.

  “Is that how she broke you?” Ben asks, laughing as Tyler punches him.

  “Nah, I let her win because that’s the only way our relationship can work.”

  This time I punch Tyler.

  “That’s why he won’t go near a basketball court. You’ve noticed that, right? Like his mom told him it was bad luck.”

  Tyler only smiles because he knows what’s up. He pulls me a little closer, that same smile on his face, and so I let him off the hook.

  “Anyway, what did you guys think about the slideshow?” I ask.

  “Ben was crying like they weren’t going to make any more comic book movies,” Tyler says.

  “First, you know my ‘no crying in public’ rule. It puts the wrong message out for the ladies,” Ben says. “And if they were going to stop making comic book movies, the ladies would understand that a few tears were necessary.”

  He reaches across the table and swipes one of my fries, popping it into his mouth with a satisfied grin.

  “I don’t even know where to start with, like, all of that,” Tyler says. “And Jesus, everybody was crying. Did you see Townsend? He probably lost five pounds of water weight tonight.”

  “I mean, it was pretty emotional,” I say.

  I swear both of them almost break their necks the way they turn to look at me.

  “Oh my God, the robot feels!” Ben says.

  “I’m not a fucking robot,” I say, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.

  The anger.

  I spend so much time making sure nobody ever sees this fast blood, this fundamental and undeniable part of me—no less necessary than my heart, my lungs—that sometimes I trick myself into think that it isn’t still there, lurking.