The Pantheon (2 page)

“
Yes sir.” Frank grunted.

“
Good boy.”

The ref shouted a fifteen yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct against Olympia Heights and declared the tailback down before the ball left his hands. Mark Alvarez’s turnover was invalid. The tailback was splinted and carted off to the ambulance. Miami was given the ball. The teams lined up for first down.

The crowds stomped rapidly on the bleachers. The effect was a tumult of rolling thunder. On the rubber track around the field the Olympia Heights cheerleaders waved their pom-poms and chanted a rhyme about defense.

Jameson passed to Alvarez, Alvarez ran it up the left and into the end zone. Nobody was fast enough to catch him. The kicker came out and the ball soared through the center of the uprights for the extra point.

Olympia Heights was down by one. First down: incomplete. Second down: fumbled and recovered for a loss of three yards. Third down: another incomplete. By fourth down Zach was losing his cool. This would be the last play if they didn’t gain thirteen yards here. Twenty seconds to go. The snap.

One of the more wily Titans ducked under Frank’s arm and rushed Zach. The sky rumbled. They collided. The heavens roared. A bolt of lightning struck Zach and the Titan with a cataclysmic blast of electricity that flung the Titan several feet, leaving Zach sitting unharmed yet dazed on soft green grass.

“
Are you sure you’re OK?” June lowered her voice and inched closer to Zach. Zach had been insisting repetitively for hours that he was fine, but his mother had still ordered that he go to the emergency room. She’d begrudgingly let June come along.

The emergency room was not chaotic like the ones on TV. It was boring. Zach had been sitting in the same chair for four hours and his ass was starting to hurt. On top of the boredom, there was an obese child in the chair across from Zach that had an infected thumb. It was horribly swollen and kind of purple. Zach tried to look away, but the kid wouldn’t stop staring slack jawed at him. It was starting to creep him out.

June had a mini DV camcorder in hand. She hadn’t let it go since the incident. She kept watching the play over and over on its tiny LCD screen. After each viewing she would look up and ask if he was OK. She seemed more confused than concerned.

Zach’s Mother stood and said,” God you would think they would give priority to someone who was HIT BY LIGHTNING!” She glared at the nurse behind the counter. The nurse nervously looked around and gathered papers as people in the waiting room gasped.

“
Mom, it’s OK, they probably just think I’m faking it. I told you I’m fine.” Zach said yawning. “Can we go home? It’s two in the morning…”

The nurse stood up.

“
We can see you now,” she said.

“
Damn right you will,” snapped Zach’s mom.

Zach and June were sitting together with their legs dangling off the edge of a hospital bed and staring at the screen of June’s camcorder. June stepped the footage frame by frame. “The strike is only on a few frames, it’s real quick, but look.”

Zach leaned over her shoulder. He was distracted by the smell of her hair. It was a blend of coconut and caramel and it was far more interesting than reliving the game through June’s home movie.

“
Come over after this, spend the night.” He didn’t have his eyes on the LCD screen anymore.

She rolled her eyes. “You just got struck by lightning, Zach.”

“
I just want to cuddle. Seriously.” He started to kiss her neck, but she pushed him off.

“
Just look at this, will you?” She shook her camera in front of his face.

Zach watched the tiny screen as the Titan in crimson and black charged him. The camera had a decent optical zoom and got tight in on his body, better than the local cable channels, which broadcasted their games as a mess of generic green and yellow clad players. Each smudge of a person was indistinguishable from the next. “Nice camera,” he said.

“
Here,” June pointed. “The lightning doesn’t come down from the sky. It travels up.”

“
What?” Okay, now Zach was interested. “Like something underground zapped me?”

“
Maybe the power for the sprinkler timer?” She looked up at him, her brow wrinkled with worry. “You should sue the school.”

“
But that doesn’t make any sense? The only thing burnt on me was my face mask.” He squinted down at the camera. “See? It comes right up through my hands and hits the guard. I should have burns on my feet if it came from the ground.”

A male nurse in blue scrubs came in with a discharge paper. Zach’s mother was right behind him, arms folded. “Okay, these are some instructions on what to watch for in upcoming days.”

“
Is that other kid okay?” Zach asked.

“
Well, I can’t really discuss other patient’s details, but I can say he’ll recover.”

“
Come on Zach,” June handed him his letterman jacket. “It’s like four in the morning. I’m ready to go to bed.”

“
I second that,” his mother spoke through a yawn. “Let’s get you home.”

The full moon illuminated the Olympia Heights football field, revealing Zach standing on the forty-yard line. The glow from his cell phone outlined his face in neon green. It was six in the morning. Zach hadn’t been to sleep yet.

“
Hey there, this is June. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name, number, and a reason for your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!”

Zach waited for his girlfriend’s voicemail message to finish playing.

He rubbed his jaw with his palm. His facial hair grew unnaturally fast and, since shaving yesterday morning, it was already starting to get soft and curl just a little. Zach’s eyes were cast down at the field. The electric blue moon doused the world in its light. While everything seemed coated in blue, the field still seemed bright green.

The beep, finally.

“
Hey Junebug, it’s me. I’m out here looking for the spot. I’ve been watching lightning strikes on Youtube since you went home and they all leave this ugly black burn mark.” He hesitated and switched the phone to his other ear. “There’s no burn mark here and I don’t think they’ve changed the turf in the last ten hours. I don’t think I was struck by lightning.”

Zach knew that the thoughts running through his mind now made no sense. He was certifiable for even thinking it. It sounded crazy, but he had to say it. “I think I
was
the lightning.”

“
To love is nothing.”

-Greek Proverb

ii.

It was a terrifying, pressing silence.

All the birds, all the wind, every mayfly

had ceased its throbbing chorus to abandon

the innocent girl.

She bundled saffron crocus for a bouquet

as the sounds of earth were devoured by the void.

The pulsing in her eardrums was thunderous,

painful with quiet.

He was around her before she saw his face.

His breath was cold and stagnant against her neck.

The fair girl shoved him away and tried to run.

His chariot rose.

The growing shadow of four coal-black horses

engulfed her as she fell and rolled on the grass.

His obsidian eyes burned into her heart,

from his soft, fair face.

Tired and scared, he looked on her with a mixture

of confusion, of fear and adoration.

The ground tore open and they were devoured.

Consumed in the dark.

“
Familiarity breeds contempt.”

-Aesop

II.

Dr. Celene Davis looked ill when she graced the office of Dr. Jason Livingstone that Monday morning. Her fair face was angular, with high cheekbones, cat-like dark eyes, and a thin, pointed nose. Her dark reddish-brown hair was always pinned tight on the top of her head. Despite her thick, brown glasses, Jason could see dark circles. She looked paler than usual.

“
What can I get for you, Dr. Davis?” Jason asked the biology teacher, the only other person in the school with a PhD besides himself and Dr. Philips, the school principal. Celene had previously worked for a pharmaceutical company, but left to spend more time with her daughter when her husband had died of lymph node cancer. She’d been here for six years, longer than Jason.

“
Aspirin,” she said, taking off her glasses and tucking one of the temples into the point of her v-neck collar so she could press her fingertips under her brow. “Woke up with a whopping headache.”

“
Are you staying hydrated?” he asked. From Jason’s experience with kids, headaches were either caused by sleep deprivation, dehydration, or general dislike of American History.

“
Always,” she said, pouring a glass of water while Jason went into his locked cabinet for medication.

This was the extent of their contact. Once in a great while Celene would bump into him in the faculty lounge and they would exchange small talk. Generally she carried her own aspirin in her purse, but lately she’d been suffering a string of headaches and had run out. Jason didn’t get to know many of his coworkers. Mainly he got to know the kids with inhalers or other daily meds. He had a few hypochondriacs and a couple more frequent fighters who needed bandages and a detention slip.

Celene took a pair of chalky white pills and chased them with a gulp of water. She turned and surveyed the room, needing a moment of quiet before going back to noisy halls. It was her planning period anyway. She had a moment to breathe. A moment to forget the dream that had kept her up all night.

The curtained vinyl couches were full-up today. Celene scanned the faces. She didn’t recognize one girl with choppy Kool-Aid-colored hair. Zach Jacobs, on doctors orders, was sitting out of gym class for the week. He had his cell phone out and was playing a game, which nobody bothered to confiscate as he was their hometown hero.

Laying in the dark, silent but alert, was another boy Celene recognized. Peter Hadley. He was in her B-block sophomore biology class. He was quiet and sometimes snippy with the other students. Peter’s class participation grade suffered because he always found ways to slither out of group work and do the assignment alone. Still, he was careful and articulate. He gave great attention to his lab work and great insights in his essays. His patience was noted. He observed everything, where as other students chatted and filled in numbers they accidentally missed with guesses.

Celene was sure that he wasn’t ill, though it was hard to tell with his chalk-white skin and dark, sunken eyes. He had a pinched face marked with sharp cheekbones and lashes as black as his hair. The skinny boy could easily grow up to be dangerously handsome, but for now he looked underfed and under the weather. But this was his normal look, right? She assumed, and Jason knew, that Peter was just here to conveniently miss gym class.

The door opened on the other end of the darkened resting room. A sliver of light came through the open door and backlit blonde hair, creating a halo effect as she stepped into the room. Celene immediately recognized the freshman girl as her daughter, Penny. She looked like her father, round-faced, blue-eyed. Celene would hardly have known Penny was hers if she hadn’t spent nine hours in labor with her.

“
Can I help you with something?” Jason asked from his reclaimed seat at his desk.

“
Actually, I’m here looking for my mom,” Penny said.

“
Something wrong?” Celene made sure to leave off the tempting “sweetie.”

“
I forgot my lunch.”

Of course. “My purse is back at my classroom.”

“
I’ll come with you.”

“
Thank you, Dr. Livingstone,” Celene said, pointing to the capped bottle of aspirin on the counter. He nodded his reply and went back to looking at his reading.

Penny turned and walked back out the door and Celene went to follow. In the dark, Celene saw Peter Hadley’s head turn and trail the girl. There was a glint of something behind that look, something she thought was longing, before he turned his head sharply back to the dark corner of the room and turned on his side.

Celene hesitated in the doorway, glancing at his back and sharp shoulders, draped with a faded, baggy Black Sabbath t-shirt and barely moving with his slow, shallow breath. She didn’t like that look. It made her feel sick. But she supposed Penny was a teenager now and boys were going to look at her in lots of ways she wouldn’t like.

Her eardrums thundered as the headache struck her anew. The aspirin hadn’t kicked in yet. Celene closed the door to the nurse’s office behind her and followed her daughter down the hall, her heart hammering.