Chubby Chaser (8 page)

The walk proved to be a disappointment for Jason, as the company remained as tedious and as annoying as ever, which wasn’t surprising, given that said company was a girl and that the girl was Emily. She further galled him by keeping him relegated to second base in the sex department when he suggested that they sneak into a cove for a little fun. And to top it all, he didn’t even have the slightest hint of a buzz to make his situation more palatable.

Later that evening, he and Emily were snuggling while gazing at the bonfire when Amanda, coming from behind, pulled Emily to the ground by her hair. She then climbed on top of Emily, called her a slut, and repeatedly slapped her. Emily retaliated by digging her nails deep into Amanda’s face.

Jason thought about breaking up the fight, but he decided to watch instead: the sight of two girls going at it was such a turn-on (and it was kind of cool to see two chicks fighting over him). No one else tried to intervene either (some were filming the fight with their smartphones) until a few swats from Amy prompted Collin to try to separate them. Eric went over to help, and it looked as though he copped a feel of Amanda’s tits during his efforts to pull her off Emily.

“You’re dead, you fucking slut! Do you hear me? Dead!” Amanda was kicking and screaming and doing her best to get her hands on Emily again, but Eric held her tight, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other around her breasts. Her face was a little bloody, as well as a little scarred, from Emily’s scratches.

“Fuck you, you crazy bitch!” Emily came back, underneath the mountain of dirty-blond hair covering her face.

“Shut the fuck up, you pathetic cocksucking whore!”

Jason smirked; he thought it was hilarious that Amanda would call Emily out for sucking dick when Amanda herself had given him several blow jobs, and Emily hadn’t given him any. Yet.

“Get the fuck off me!” Amanda shouted at Eric, but he didn’t let her go. She smashed one of his feet with one of hers, making him let go, and stormed off.

“Stupid slut!” Eric called after her.

Collin dragged Emily over to Jason. “You got her, man?”

“Yeah, I got her.” He asked Emily, “Are you okay?”

She flipped her hair out of her face. Tears were running down her slightly bruised cheeks. Why did girls cry over everything? A dude—a real dude, not some fag—wouldn’t be caught dead crying before, during, or after a fight, but chicks did each and every time.

“I’m fine,” Emily said, wiping the tears from her face. “I just don’t know what her fucking problem is. I thought we were cool. I thought we were friends. Fucking bitch.” Jason held Emily in his arms to console her. A few seconds later, she looked up at him, panicked. “Is my face okay? I don’t want it to be a hot mess for homecoming.”

Thursday’s practice was a repeat of Wednesdays: no fumbles and only a single successful interception when second string was in possession of the ball, but Coach Logan wasn’t feeling as charitable as he had been on Wednesday, so he made the team run fifteen laps, either forgetting or not caring that he had said he would only double the number of laps for each fumble and each interception for each additional day that they spent on passing plays.

“Ya’ll will be thanking me tomorrow for this,” Coach Logan said as they ran around the field. “This will make ya’ll more hungry and eager to win, come tomorrow.”

Jason’s alarm on his phone went off at six in the morning on Friday, as usual, but Jason was already up, having been too pumped for today’s events to fall asleep last night. He knew that today was his day, but he made sure he wore his lucky blue plaid boxers just the same. The boxers had started to fray along the waistline, and they had developed a tiny hole where his taint sat from Jason wearing them so often over the years: he had worn these boxers the first time he’d had sex (sophomore year); he had worn these boxers when Coach Logan had made him the varsity starting quarterback (junior year); and he had worn these boxers when he had led his team to win the state championship (last December), so it was fitting that he wore them today.

Cheers and salutations, from students and teachers alike, greeted Jason when he walked through the school’s doors that morning. He had always been warmly received, but today it was even more pronounced. They knew Jason was the reason they had won their first state championship in years, and they wanted to motivate him to do it for homecoming. They were counting on him. They were depending on him. It added even more pressure to what Jason was already feeling, but it was cool. He did his best work under pressure; besides, he liked people counting and depending on him: it made him feel wanted; it made him feel important; it made him feel as though he mattered.

Jason was so wired that it seemed to take three hundred hours to get through his morning classes instead of three. Having lunch in the cafeteria with his friends compounded his excitement, as they, as well as the whole school—minus the boring losers—were as amped as he was.

There were no afternoon classes so that all of the students could partake in the parade and pep assembly. Jason and the rest of the football team went into the locker rooms to change into their uniforms after lunch. When they were done, they went to the football field, where their underclassmen-made float for the parade was waiting for them: it was a large white eagle with blue wings perched on top of a large flatbed truck. A leather seat had been attached to the eagle’s back, and Jason knew on instinct alone that the seat was meant for him—the quarterback, the leader. He began to scale the float, using steps built into the side, when Eric called to him.

“J, what are you doing?”

“Being the natural badass that I am.” He placed himself in the seat. “How fucking cool is this?”

“You’re the douchebag of the world!” Eric joked. He and the other players climbed into the flatbed.

Jason heard the marching band playing in the distance, signifying that the parade procession had begun. The police and fire trucks were the first to go, followed by the marching band. The cheerleaders and all the other sports teams were up next. They sometimes had floats of their own, but they usually only rode in plain flatbed trucks with banners that had their names on them. The homecoming-court nominees came after the cheerleaders and other sports teams. They rode in their parents’ convertibles and trucks, which had banners on them stating the nominee’s name and the class the nominee was in, while waving from the back. The football team, the real stars of the parade, went last in the cavalcade.

Jason looked down at his adoring public from his seat in the sky, and they were looking up at him, shouting and cheering. They were so minuscule from his vantage point that he felt as though he were God looking down at a bunch of insects. These feelings would intensify when it came time to take the field, and everyone was looking for him to guide them and to pull another win. The parade traversed the main streets surrounding the school before heading back to the school itself for the pep rally.

The pep rally took place in the school’s gymnasium. The cheerleading squad, led by Emily, started off the event by hyping up the crowd with the school’s fight song. The marching band backed them up with musical accompaniment. Jason and the other football players stood and watched from the far right side of the gym.

While the other players leered at the cheerleaders, Jason searched the bleachers for his parents. He searched for them every time at every game, but he didn’t know why. They had never shown up for one of his games—they had instructed the nanny to drop him off and pick him up from his peewee-league practices and games, though—nor had they ever given any indication that they would. But Jason looked for them every time anyway. Neither one of his parents were football fans. In fact, Jason would hardly be exaggerating if he said that in a town of about two hundred thousand, his parents were the only ones not into football. But they could’ve still shown up to support him. Eric’s parents spent more time traveling than they did at home, yet Eric’s mom somehow found the time to show up to most of his games, and his dad would make it from time to time, too. And Andy’s mom managed to make regular appearances at his games despite being a single parent and working odd hours as a nurse. Jason pushed his parents out of his mind. He had a game to win and a college coach to impress. He couldn’t afford to let anything cloud his mind or cripple his playing abilities.

The cheerleaders and the marching band finished their performance and then relinquished the floor to Mr. Franklin, the vice principal, who was carrying a small trophy, and a mannish-looking older woman with an austere face and short black hair. She looked familiar to Jason, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place a name with the face. Her heels clacked as she moved to the middle of the gymnasium floor, carrying a microphone in her hand. She began to speak.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Ms. Kallens. As some of you may already know, I am the new principal of Tallis High, and I just wanted to welcome you all to the first pep assembly of the school year.” She paused to clap, and the audience joined her. “Our first order of business is to announce the winning class of our show-your-school-spirit design contest. And the winner is . . .”—she paused for dramatic effect—“the senior class. May I have the senior class president, Michael Adams, come accept the award on behalf of all the seniors?” The crowd’s cheers made her microphone-enhanced voice sound like a whisper, forcing Ms. Kallens to repeat herself.

Michael Adams, clad in a pair of black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt that read “If Jesus were alive, he would’ve occupied Wall Street,” descended the bleacher steps and joined Ms. Kallens and Mr. Franklin. Ms. Kallens took the trophy from Mr. Franklin and handed it to Michael. He set the trophy on the floor and took the microphone from Ms. Kallens, who seemed loath to give it to him. It appeared that Michael was about to give another one of his lame-ass speeches when he took the microphone from Ms. Kallens, so Jason tuned out. Michael might be popular (how that happened, Jason did not know), but to Jason, he was nothing more than a pompous, self-righteous hipster who always tried to make himself sound smart by using big words and important by mentioning the various political causes he participated in. Jason liked to remind Michael every chance he got that his dad worked for Jason’s parents and that Jason would have won the election for class president if he had ran to keep Michael in his place.

“Thank you, Michael. That was a wonderful speech on civic pride,” Ms. Kallens said as she took the microphone back.

“But I wasn’t finished,” Michael said.

Ms. Kallens ignored him. “Now I will turn over the floor to our Coach Logan.”

The audience gave the coach a standing ovation.

Michael went back to his seat.

Ms. Kallens handed Coach Logan the microphone and then took a seat on the lowest level of the bleachers, taking Mr. Franklin with her.

“We are the reigning state champs!” the coach announced, to thunderous applause. “Feels good to hear that, doesn’t it?” The audience applauded their approval. “After eight years of trying and failing, we are the reigning state champs.” The crowd of fans again showed their support via applause. “So far, we’ve won all our games.” The crowd cheered, whistled, and clapped. “And there is no doubt in my mind that we will win tonight’s homecoming game, and a second state championship, come this December. And it’s because of all these fine, upstanding men right here. Let’s give ’em all a big ole hand.” The coach turned toward the team, clapping, and the audience followed his lead. The coach then called each player up to the center of the gymnasium, and introduced him, saving Jason for last. When the coach called Jason’s name, the audience really lost it, cheering and roaring more loudly than they had for all the other players combined, and chanting the catchphrase “Do it, Pruitt!” with such fervor that one could have mistaken the school gymnasium for a cult of religious zealots. Jason was thrilled, to be sure—he did love attention and adoration—but he retained his usual calm, cool veneer as he strode up to the middle of the gymnasium floor and stood beside the coach, placing himself in front of his teammates, who had formed a horizontal line behind Coach Logan.

After the football team’s introduction, Ms. Kallens and Mr. Franklin took center stage again to announce the homecoming court for the underclassmen and the nominees and winners for homecoming royalty. When Ms. Kallens called their names, the students had to walk to the middle of the gym, where they would receive a single red rose from Mr. Franklin, then form a horizontal line to the right of the two principals.

For the freshmen class, Russell Cowen, a shaggy-haired blond boy and Penny Simmons, a pint-size, bottle-blond girl, were chosen. For sophomores, Nate Byrd, a beefy outside linebacker on the junior-varsity football team and Anya Perkins, a leggy brunette, who had given Jason a blow job last year, were picked.

The homecoming prince nominees were Jordan Fields, a tall black guy; Bradley Garrett, a guy on the varsity basketball team; and Riley Sims. The choices for princess were Amber Taylor, a girl who wore more makeup than Tammy Faye Baker; Tina Rhodes, a flat-chested runt; and Amy Reed.

Jason, Eric, and Collin were the homecoming king nominees. Kimberly
Weitse
l, Emily’s less attractive but more wild and loose friend; Alyson Manning, a pretty cheerleader Jason was interested in getting to know after he ditched Emily; and Emily received the homecoming queen nods.