Losers Take All (6 page)

I was laughing so hard I started crying manly tears of my own. My gasps turned into deep sobs, and I thought I might choke to death. Muhldinger stopped smiling and stared at me as if trying to gauge something. “What's so funny?”

Suddenly I was almost shouting at him, and it's a strange thing to shout at your principal in his office. “Look at him!” I said, pointing to the color photo of Gentry. “He died flat on his back in front of five thousand people because he also went to war and was trying to break some kind of meaningless state record at the age of seventy.”

“Maybe that's how he wanted to leave us,” Muhldinger said. “Why is that funny?”

My voice got even louder. “
It isn't funny at all!
Heart attacks are agonizing. If he hadn't died that day he'd be in this office right now, reading a book, and then he'd go home and kiss his wife and play with his grandkids.”

Our new principal couldn't argue with those observations, but his jaw moved under the skin, as if he was chewing on something that had an unpleasant taste. “Lower your voice,” he commanded, and stood up. “Take your shirt and go, and ask your dad to teach you some respect.”

I stood up to face him. “Keep the shirt.”

Muhldinger towered over me. “I must've told fifty people you're coming on the team.”

I took a breath, and the truth came tumbling out: “Sorry, but I don't want the shirt, and I don't want to play for your football team. That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

Muhldinger's forehead turned red, and then his cheeks, and in a few seconds the point of his nose and the stub where his neck should have been were also scarlet. His voice grated out from between clenched teeth: “I feel sorry for your father.”

“This has nothing to do with my father.”

He took a step closer. “It has everything to do with your father,” he insisted. I had a feeling he wanted to lower his shoulder and drive me through a wall, but of course he couldn't. “Do you think I would have offered you a spot on my varsity team if you weren't a Logan? Now, goddamn it, I'm running this school and you're going to be suited up and on my sideline on opening day, and that's the end of it.”

The Logan side of me must have taken over, because suddenly I wasn't afraid of him anymore. I looked right back into his hard black eyes and said: “No I'm not. I'm going out for the C soccer team.”

“Get the hell out of my office. You're an embarrassment.”

I saw him start to lose it, and he turned away very quickly. I thought he was going to open the door and shove me out, but then I saw his right hand clench into a fist and start to swing. His body pivoted, and
BAM
his fist went right through half an inch of solid wood. A karate black belt couldn't have done better.

The next thing I knew there was a big hole in his new door. Muhldinger was holding his right fist in his left hand and cursing, and the secretary with orange hair was telling me: “I really think you should go now.”

 

8

It's a lot easier to get through four hours of busing tables when you know you're going to be taking a girl like Becca to a movie afterward. Half-chewed cheeseburgers didn't seem as gross as usual, and I didn't even mind the french fries that had been stomped on and ground into the red carpet like thin wads of chewing gum.

We finished up at nine, left our bikes chained up behind Burger Central, and headed over to the mall on foot. It was a four-block walk on a warm summer evening. Becca was wearing tan shorts and a red V-necked top, and her long hair blew in the evening breeze. She smoothed it back as we talked, and everything would have been great except that she seemed obsessed with finding out what had gone on between Muhldinger and me. “I hear he broke his pinky. Meg saw him yesterday, and she said he's got his fingers taped together in some kind of splint. What did you say to him?”

“Nothing.”

She studied my face. “That must have been some pretty good nothing. Was he aiming at you or the door?”

“If he'd been aiming at me, I wouldn't be alive now to take you to this movie,” I told her. “Could we talk about something else?”

Becca finally let it go. “Sorry. What else would you like to talk about?”

I ran through a couple of possible stupid questions in my head at rapid speed and chose one that I actually was curious about. “Why do you study so much?”

She frowned. “At other schools kids study much harder than I do and no one thinks they're freaks.”

“I wasn't calling you a freak,” I told her. “I was just trying to get to know you a bit.”

“Ask me a better question, Jack, and I'll give you a better answer.”

She seemed to be challenging me to take a risk. I blurted out what I was really curious about: “Why did you ask me on a date? We've worked together for two months, and I didn't think you were at all interested.”

I got another one of those smiles. “It was a slow day at Hidden Lake,” she teased.

“That's what I figured,” I told her. “Either that or you felt sorry for me because I got my teeth bashed in.”

The lights of the mall shone two blocks away, and cars streamed into the parking garage, but the sidewalk was deserted. We walked side by side in silence.

“I did feel sorry about what happened to you,” Becca admitted. “I was going to visit you in the hospital, but you got out fast.”

“Not fast enough,” I told her. “Doctors and dentists were all over me for two days. I hate dentists, and I'm not fond of nurses or oral surgeons, either. I couldn't eat any solid food for a while. Just stuff Mom ran through a machine till it was goopy.”

“Why do you hate dentists?” She seemed intrigued.

“They're creepy.”

“My father's a dentist,” she told me.

“You're kidding, right? I've never heard of a Dr. Knight in this town.”

“His practice is in Mapleville.”

“No offense,” I said quickly. “I had no idea what your dad did. I'm sure he's a nice guy and a very good dentist.”

She smiled at my awkward apology. “Actually I sort of agree with you that it's a little creepy. He wants me to follow in his footsteps, but it'll never happen. I might end up as a doctor, but there's no way I'm going to spend my life looking into people's mouths. He doesn't take no for an answer, and sometimes he can get really stubborn.” She broke off as we reached the mall and headed up the escalator.

*   *   *

The comedy I had picked was horrible. The jokes were so lame that no one in the theater was laughing. After half an hour people started filing out, and Becca touched my arm and whispered: “Enough?”

“Let's go,” I agreed.

We joined the stream of people fleeing out the exit. “You really know how to choose them,” she said.

“Dylan told me it was good. But then again he has no taste.”

“Clearly,” she agreed.

I glanced up at a clock. It was just a little before ten. I didn't want our first date to fizzle out so quickly. “Do you want to do something else? It's still early.”

“What did you have in mind?”

There wasn't much to do in our town, even on a Friday night. “Bowling?” I suggested.

“I hate bowling more than you hate dentists,” she told me.

“Then you choose.”

Becca thought for a minute. “Let's go see Shadow.”

“Look out the window,” I said. “It's night. No sun, no shadows.”

She laughed. “Shadow is my horse.”

“Does he see visitors this late?”

“They have evening lessons at the stable on Fridays. We can just make it. Come.”

We hurried to get our bikes and headed over to Brookfarm Stables. I had driven by it many times, but I had never been inside. I followed Becca through the front gate. She waved to the guard, who waved back, and we biked up a long driveway.

We rode past a lighted riding arena with a lesson going on. Beyond it were dark barns.

Becca led me to a side entrance and hopped off her bike. “We don't have to lock them up,” she said. “I've been coming here for years and it's totally safe. We just need to make sure we're out by ten-thirty when they lock the front gate.” She slipped in the door and I followed her.

The barn was dark and had a musty stench of everything having to do with horses. Becca switched on a row of bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling and led me down a narrow corridor past dozens of gloomy stalls. The horses were on their feet. Some of them were eating oats, but most were standing silent and motionless. Occasionally I saw tails twitch and heads swing in my direction.

“Do they sleep standing up?” I asked.

“It's not really sleep,” she told me. “They're napping.”

“How come they don't doze off and fall over?”

“They were originally prey animals,” she explained. “They had to be able to run from predators so they developed the ability to lock their legs and rest standing up. That way if a predator came, they could wake in an instant and break into a run. They nap for fifteen- or twenty-minute stretches all day long, standing up. Every so often they need to lie down for an hour and really crash.”

She stopped by a stall, and I saw the outline of a horse, facing away from us. “Shadow,” she whispered just a bit louder. “Hey.”

The horse recognized her voice and swung around to face us. He was one of the bigger horses in the barn, and had a reasonably kind expression on his brown-and-white face given that we had just woken him up. He stepped over near the bars of the stall, and Becca reached in and fondly patted his nose. “Hey, boy.” Shadow nuzzled her hand and then looked at me. “Talk to him,” she said.

I wasn't sure what to say to a horse. “Hello, Shadow.”

“Go ahead and pet him,” she urged.

Shadow looked me over, and I think he was wondering who the hell I was and what I was doing with his girl. “He's jealous,” I told her.

She patted Shadow's nose. “Jack's okay,” she told the big horse. “Please don't bite him.”

I reached out and tentatively patted Shadow's nose, and he let me. My hand brushed her hand. “Did you once tell me that Shadow hurt his leg?”

She nodded. “Five years ago. They wanted to put him down. I wouldn't let them. My father kept telling me I had to do it, that it would be for the best in the long run. That's one of his favorite sayings—‘It may be painful now, but it will be better later on.' But there are a lot of ways of excusing cruelty…” Becca's hand trembled. I noticed she was breathing a little fast.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No,” she said. And then she started to cry.

I didn't know what to do. I was in a dark barn on a first date with a girl who was shivering, and tears were streaming down her face. This wasn't in the first-date manual. She pulled her hand back from Shadow and wrapped her arms around herself, as if the temperature had suddenly dropped fifty degrees.

“Should I go get someone?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. I'll be okay. Sorry,” she said, gasping as if she were having trouble breathing. “I have these sometimes. They pass. Sorry, Jack.”

“Stop saying you're sorry,” I told her. “Was the movie that bad? Or is it me? Did I say too many stupid things?”

Becca smiled through her tears. “No, you're fine. I'm the one who's a mess.”

“Can I help?” I asked.

I watched her take a series of short breaths, inhaling and exhaling at regular intervals. When her breathing got more regular, she said in a low voice: “I haven't told this to anyone else, but my parents aren't getting along.”

“That sucks.”

She nodded and took a couple more breaths. “It's been bad for a long time. But lately it's gotten much worse. And … I just can't handle it sometimes.”

She trembled again and I put my arm on her shoulder to steady her. “Okay?”

“Yeah, I'll be okay,” she said. “I just need a little time.” We were silent for a moment, and then slowly we leaned into each other until I was holding her and she was holding me. And we stood together like that in the dark barn for a few minutes, and gradually her breathing became normal again. “Sorry I unloaded on you,” she said. “Thanks for not thinking I'm a complete wacko and running away.”

“As long as you don't put your fist through a door, I'm not going anywhere,” I told her.

I pulled back and looked at her face. Her hazel eyes fixed on me, still wet with tears. For a crazy moment I thought she was going to kiss me, but she just pressed close again, and then there was a loud snort that broke the moment.

I glanced over and Shadow was staring right at us, and he wrinkled his nose at me. “Definitely jealous,” I said.

Becca looked over at her horse and laughed. “Maybe he should be,” she said. “Come on, Jack. They're going to lock the gate. Let's go home.”

 

9

Our Lions had just been named by a major newspaper as the high school football team to beat in the whole state of New Jersey, and the town was throwing itself a big party before the season even started.

The gym seats a thousand people, and it was packed to the rafters. A banner read in giant letters:
FREMONT LIONS—TRADITION, PRIDE, POWER!
The varsity players had been called out onto the darkened gym floor one by one, with a drumroll before their names and a spotlight strobing their path. They were now standing together on a raised platform in their red-and-gold jerseys, in three imposing rows. In front of them the cheerleaders had formed a pyramid that looked just a little smaller than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Muhldinger sat in the middle of the raised platform with the president of the board of education and the mayor, watching the goings-on with a proud smile.

I was not out on the floor with the football team. I had turned that honor down, and I sat with Dylan, Frank, and Becca on a middle bleacher, dreading what was about to happen. My friends couldn't understand why I had dragged them to this late-summer pep rally. “There's a reason I need to go, that I can't talk about,” I had told them. “But you guys have to come and support me.”