The Walk On (35 page)

Now Alex was really baffled. He put the tray down and followed Coach Brotman, who was half running, half walking
out of the room. When they got into the hallway, Alex pulled even with him and said, “Coach, what’s up?”

Coach Brotman simply held up a hand and kept walking.

When they got to Coach Gordon’s office, there were two other men in the room whom Alex didn’t recognize.

“Myers, this is Mr. Turgeson from the Pennsylvania state school board,” Coach Gordon said.

Alex took a step in Mr. Turgeson’s direction to shake hands, but the man recoiled as if Alex were carrying some kind of virus.

“And this is Mr. Lyons, from LabCorp.”

Mr. Lyons, who was standing against the wall, didn’t even nod at him, so Alex didn’t bother with attempting a handshake.

“Coach, what is this about?” Alex said. He was now both baffled and scared.

“What this is about, Mr. Myers,” the school board guy said, stepping forward, “is the results of your drug test from last week.”

“Drug test?” Alex said. “What about my drug test?”

The school board guy—Mr. Turgeson—took another step forward, almost into Alex’s face, before he answered.

“You tested positive for a synthetic testosterone called”—he said some name that Alex never heard—“and your level was high enough that, even allowing for the possibility that you have an abnormally high level, it’s clear you have been taking steroids. If by some chance”—he was sneering now—“the B sample comes back clean, then you’ll be cleared. But
the chances of that are close to zero. As of now, pending the B sample result, you are suspended from playing football—or any other high school sport—in the state of Pennsylvania.”

Alex realized his mouth was hanging open. He closed it and shook his head, thinking he’d wake up from the nightmare he was clearly having. He didn’t.

“There’s no way,” he finally said. “There has to be a mistake. I’ve never taken
any
drugs in my life, unless you count aspirin.”

Turgeson laughed in a very unfunny way. “Are you a sports fan, Myers?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever heard an athlete who has tested positive come out and say, ‘Yeah, I did it?’ Of course not. You’re all innocent.”

“There is still the B sample,” Coach Gordon said. “I thought you didn’t consider someone guilty until you got the B sample back.”

“We can’t prosecute anyone legally without the B sample,” Turgeson said. “We
can
suspend.”

“What’s the B sample?” Alex asked.

“We draw enough blood for two tests. If the first test comes back positive, we can retest with the remainder. On rare occasions it will show a different result.
Very
rare occasions. If the B sample comes back positive, we will then decide whether you should be prosecuted or face expulsion from school—or both. In the meantime, you won’t be playing on Friday.”

Alex felt all the color drain from his face. He was scared and he was angry—angry because he knew someone had
make a mistake and yet this Turgeson guy was acting as if he were Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez rolled into one.

He turned to Coach Gordon, who looked very upset too.

“Coach, I’m telling you, this can’t be right,” he said. “I don’t even know what these guys are talking about. There’s got to be something you can do. I’ll give another sample right now. This man”—he pointed at the man from LabCorp—“can test it right away and prove I’m innocent.”

Coach Gordon shook his head. “Alex, it doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry. I believe you—I really do. We’ll wait for the B sample and hope it shows that this is a mistake.” He pointed at Alex but stared at Turgeson. “Does this look to you like an athlete on steroids?” he asked. “What do you weigh Alex—160?

“One-sixty-six,” Alex said.

“Some steroid user,” Coach Gordon said. “Use your eyes.”

“We use science,” Turgeson said. “And his test is positive. Do you want to tell him or should I?”

Coach Gordon glared at Turgeson for a moment and then sighed. “Myers, until further notice you are suspended from the football team. You may not come into the locker room or be on the sideline during the game on Friday.” He looked at Turgeson. “Happy?” he said.

“Overjoyed,” Turgeson said. “Mr. Myers, we’ll be in touch.”

He turned and walked out, followed by the man from LabCorp.

The next few hours were a blur for Alex.

Coach Gordon explained to him that the school would have to announce that he had been suspended due to a positive drug test. If it didn’t, the board of education and the state high school athletic association would make the announcement.

“We don’t have to do it until tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow at noon, to be exact. I’d recommend you go home and talk to your parents so they know. If you want to take tomorrow off from school, I think your teachers will understand. If you want, I can talk to them for you. Once the announcement is made, you’re going to get mobbed. I wish I could tell you different, but it’s true.”

Alex wasn’t thinking about that. He was trying to figure out
how
.

“Coach, how could this have happened?” he asked. “I don’t even take vitamins.”

He knew that many of the players took vitamin supplements that they bought at GNC. After the drug testing had been announced, several had been nervous that there might be a banned substance of some kind in one of them.

“Did anyone else test positive?” he asked.

Coach Gordon shook his head. “No, thank God,” he said. “I’ll be honest, Alex, I wouldn’t have been shocked if a couple of the other guys had some kind of supplement or something in their system, but not you. Can you think of
anything
you might have taken to make your testosterone level shoot up like that?”

Alex was shaking his head as he spoke. “Nothing,” he said. “Unless there’s testosterone in a Stark’s burger or McDonald’s French fries.”

Coach Gordon put a hand on his shoulder. “Go back to class, try to get through the day.”

He walked back to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a pad and wrote something on it. “Here’s a late slip for fifth period.” He paused. “I’m really sorry this happened.”

Alex believed him. He hadn’t been this nice all season. He would rather
not
have seen this side of his coach.

Alex was completely zoned out during his history and English classes. If someone had screamed that the building was on fire, he probably wouldn’t have budged. Walking down
the hall to French class half dazed, he heard someone calling his name. He turned and saw Jonas.

“Hey, man, have you lost your hearing? I called your name like five times.”

“Sorry.”

“So what happened with Coach?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing? You don’t get called to his office in the middle of lunch for nothing.”

The two-minute warning bell was ringing. “I’ll tell you later,” Alex said. He had been thinking of a lie to tell but realized it was pointless. Jonas would know soon enough. Everyone would know soon enough. As he watched Jonas walk off looking a little bit miffed, it occurred to him they might not be teammates anymore.

“Us versus them,” he said to himself as he walked down the hall. “I’m not
us
anymore.”

He brooded about that throughout French class. At one point he realized that the whole class was staring at him.

“Monsieur Myers!”
Mademoiselle Schiff was saying, apparently not for the first time. Everyone was giggling.

“Oh,” Alex said. “Sorry. I mean,
pardonnez-moi
.”

“Monsieur Myers
.
Êtes-vous malade?”

She was asking if he was sick.

“Non, Mademoiselle,”
he replied.
“Je suis très fatigué.”

“D’accord,”
she said. And then in English, “Try to pay attention, Monsieur Myers. The game isn’t until Friday.”

More giggling. Mademoiselle Schiff speaking English was never good. It meant she was really angry.

“Oui, Mademoiselle,”
he said. And then, again,
“Pardonnez-moi.”

Mercifully, she moved on.

By the time class ended, Alex had made a decision. He followed Christine out the door and called her name. She stopped and waited for him.

“Boy, did you space out in there,” she said. “What was—”

He waved a hand at her to stop. “Listen, I have to talk to you,” he said.

“Why don’t you call me after practice,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I have to talk to you now. Not here—somewhere away from school. But right away.”

She was looking up at him with concern on her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you sick? You know we can’t talk now. You can’t be late for practice.”

“I’m not going to practice today,” he said. “I may not be going ever again.”

“Walk with me,” she said.

“Where are we going?” he asked as they unhooked their bikes.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said. “Just follow me.”

They rode in the opposition direction of Stark’s and the other places where kids hung out after school, including the McDonald’s.

They finally turned into a neighborhood with yards starting to fill up with fallen leaves. Christine wound down a road called Trotter’s Lane for a little while, then veered right onto the cleverly named Trotter’s Court. She pulled into the
driveway at the third house, a comfortable-looking, two-story redbrick house.

There was a screened-in porch off the side of the house and she rode around to it and pulled open an unlocked door. He followed her and they parked their bikes inside.

“When in doubt, go home,” she said.

She used a key to open a door that led from the porch into the kitchen. “My mom is at work until six o’clock,” she said. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Coke?” he asked.

She opened the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of Coke. Then he followed her to a family room. He was cold and winded from the bike ride and the shock of the day, but the Coke felt good going down. He sat on the couch and breathed deeply for the first time in hours.

“So,” she said, leaning forward. “What in the world is going on?”