Authors: Michael Grant Jaffe
“What game is he talking about?” she asks.
Briefly, I tell her about my coaching and wait for her to question me about Calvin, about who watches over him or what he does while I'm at the gymnasium. But she does not inquire about those things at all. Instead, she asks how everything is with me.
“Oh, I'm all right,” I say.
“That's good, Gordon. Really. That's good.”
Calvin remains at my side, his hand clutching a roll of fabric under the seat of my pants, as he does when he is nervous or when we're in a crowd.
“What I wanted to ask was about coming up to see him,” she says quickly, forcing the words together. “To see you both.”
“God,” I start, and then fall still.
“Really, I wouldn't get in the way. I'd only stay for a couple of days, at some hotel nearby, and I promise I wouldn't be a pest.”
“Kate, this is kind of a busy time for us here. Let me think about it, okay?”
“Sure,” she says. “I'll call you next week.”
Before she hangs up, she has one last question, one thing she forgot to ask. “What's he dressing up as for Halloween?”
It is a subject Calvin and I haven't thought much about. And because I do not want Kate to think me negligent, and because the holiday is in only two days, I say the first thing that comes into my mind. Actually, the second. The first was a fireman; the second is cereal.
“Cereal? Like in Cheerios or something?”
“Yeah.”
“That's certainlyâ”
“Kate, we gotta go.”
When I turn back to face the open part of the kitchen, Calvin is perched on the countertop swabbing waves of peanut butter out of the jar. I pull him down and wipe his face and hands with a dish towel.
“Look,” I say, turning his hands palms-down. “You've got peanut butter under your fingernails.”
He cocks his head, not sure how to respond.
“If you get hungry during the game, just bite your nails.”
Not long before Kate and I became serious about each other, I slept with one of her friends. It was accidental, almostâa drunken groping, wrestling naked on the windowsill, desk, and toilet tank.
And Kate found out. We sat in her bedroom, both blinking away salt leaking from our tear ducts. Neither of us wanted this thing between us to end, we were so close to love. She leaned over and I thought she meant to kiss me on the side of my face. Instead, she rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt and started slugging me, hard, like a guy, near where my arm connected to my shoulder.
She hit me maybe ten, fifteen times in the same spot.
“That'll bruise,” she said, once she'd finished and was rubbing her hand between her thighs.
I nodded, refusing to touch the throbbing welt on my arm.
“Leave now,” she said. “And don't call me again until the bruise has disappeared completely.”
When I finally came over again, nine days later, she made me remove my shirt and she checked my arm in the light for the faintest of markings. Then she punched me one last time and told me we'd never discuss this again.
Calvin and I sit quietly in the corner of the school parking lot, me peering through the windshield as people begin filing into the gymnasium, Calvin picking at a loose thread near his left knee. After five minutes or so, Noah Ward enters, followed closely by Zoe. It makes me feel good that she has come to the game, even if it is only to watch her brother playâalthough I don't think that's the case. She is wearing a plaid skirt and dark thigh-high leg warmers.
A few days ago, I returned home to find Calvin sitting on the floor of his bedroom trying to yank a pair of green tights onto his legs. He had stolen the tights from Meg, slipped them into his sack before Charlotte dropped him at the house. Something about watching him lying there, fumbling, the tights tangled about his calves like cabbage plants, repulsed me. “You're crazy,” I said, walking to his side. “You little screwed-up ⦔ Then I stepped on his ankle, forcefully, causing him to
holler and squirm. It lasted only an instant, until I removed my foot. There are so many moments when it seems I am still examining the weight and texture of parenthood. Sometimes, there's just a meanness we act uponâthe same evil streak that once forced Mrs. Grafton, the kindest woman on the planet, into making nasty, distorted faces at her mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. “It was inexcusable,” said Mrs. Grafton later, over a glass of gin in my kitchen. “I scared her to death and I don't even know why. I guess I just wanted to make some impression, some contact. Like I was asking, âAre you in there? Can you hear me?'”
Finally, when I'm lost well among my thoughts and have forgotten about Calvin, he turns to me and says, “Could we go in now?”
Last night it rained heavy and there is a large kidney-shaped puddle of mud between my car and the back door to the gym. Although he begins to whine, I hoist Calvin over my shoulder and carry him toward my office to preserve his best pair of shoes. We leave our coats and I sort through some papers on my clipboard before walking down the hallway that leads to the gymnasium floor. The girls' varsity team is finishing its game with Fairview and I poke my head in to see the scoreboard. Tarent is ahead by six, with slightly under four minutes remaining. Calvin tries to look inside, too, but I pull him back and direct him to the locker room.
The boys are standing around in various states of undress, some of them talking, laughing. In a far corner Pat Booth is lacing a new pair of sneakers, while Chris Rayles sits at his side, pointing at a picture in a magazine,
trying to get Pat to look up. Eric Shaw is sprinkling powder on his feet, kneading it in with the heel of his palm. Calvin rushes to Peter Sawyer, who is pulling at the armpits of his jersey to loosen it. He slips it on and then lets Calvin grab hold and dangle from it as he stands.
“You look kind of nervous,” Peter says, turning to me with Calvin clinging to his torso like a suckling orangutan.
“Are you?” I ask.
“A little.”
“Yeah, me too. A little. I suppose that's only natural, though.”
Peter nods and then lowers Calvin to the ground. Ned Morrow comes up behind me and asks if he can have another jersey number, he has decided he doesn't like the one he's been assigned.
“You'll have to wear it for this game. I'll look and see what I've got for next time.”
A boy I've never seen before comes in to tell me the girls' game has ended and we have to take the floor for warm-up in fifteen minutes.
There is nothing else I can tell them, I think, my eyes skipping from face to face. Noah spins a ball on his finger, slapping at it occasionally with his free hand to keep it moving.
My father might have given them something they could use, told them how much this game meant, how it will set the tone for the rest of the season. How they should reach down inside for that something extra, if need be, and not let him or the school down. But, most important, not to let themselves down. I will not speak
of these things. For, after all, they are simply children.
“Have some fun,” I say.
They are waiting for more, but there is nothing else. Only a small smile from Calvin as he follows me out the swinging door. The first time I hear their voices again, I am halfway down the corridor to the gym. And even then, they sound stunted and unclear.
Calvin reaches the bench before me, climbing up to greet Zoe, who is seated in the bleachers behind him. I'm walking slowly around the court, taking it all in like a long, sweet breath. A couple of cheerleaders run past, digging through their purses as they reach for the pay telephone. The air smells of warm, buttered popcorn and hot dogs, which rotate on a spit behind one of the school's mathematics teachers at the concession stand. Against the walls at either end of the floor are hand-lettered signs painted by the school's pep committee.
The Trojans Will Triumph
, says one. Another has an enormous red Trojan holding a rather meek-looking wolf in his armored fist. It reads:
Rip the Wolves
.
There seems to be a relatively good-sized crowd, with most of the bleacher seats taken. Poised near the scorer's table, wearing a flannel shirt and tweed blazer, is Lyle Anderson, the man who rented Calvin and me our house. He is talking to Jess Thomas, the school's principal and scoreboard operator. As I approach them, Lyle grabs my bicep and gives it a gentle squeeze as he wishes me luck. I thank him and take a drink from one of the water bottles beneath our bench. Calvin sees this and calls for a drink of his own. But once I hand him the bottle he begins squirting it randomly, sending squiggly,
toothpaste-fine bursts of water across his legs and on the floor in front of him.
“That's enough,” I say, taking a towel and wiping up the damp spot beyond the bench. I wave to Zoe and she smiles back, holding up her right hand and crossing her fingers.
“For luck,” she says, so softly I can barely make out the words.
Then Jess Thomas sounds a loud buzzer that causes Calvin to jump. Carbon Springs comes out first, immediately breaking into two single-file lines for a lay-up drill at the opposite end of the court. Shortly thereafter, Tarent follows suit and the crowd erupts with applause. This is the best part of the game, I remember my father once saying under his breath as I stood at his side. He meant the endless possibilities, the prickly energy popping from each nerve ending. It is taking forever, I think, pacing in front of the bench while the boys change from lay-ups to jump shots. From behind, Zoe reaches down and hands me a stick of chewing gum.
“It'll help you relax,” she says.
“What makes you think I need relaxing?”
“That,” she responds, pointing to a game program I have nearly twisted in two with my right hand.
The first basket is scored by Eric Shaw, who intercepts the opening tip and dribbles freely to the foul line, where he hits a jumper. Sitting motionless, hands facedown on my thighs, I watch them set up on defense. They begin in a two-three zone and I yell out for them to put their hands up. Quickly, it becomes apparent that
Carbon Springs is overmatched and by halftime Tarent is ahead by 16 points.
There is much of the same in the second half and I ease into the role of fan instead of coach. I no longer walk through the plays in my mind; now I simply enjoy the game. Late, after much of the crowd has already begun to leave, I glance down the bench and realize that Cy Connell is the only player who hasn't been in yet. I call him over and tell him to replace Noah.
When he does, Noah reluctantly grabs a towel and turns to me. “I only need one more bucket,” he says. “I've got 18 points.”
“Cy has no points,” I say.
Noah shrugs, and almost instinctively, sickened by his lack of compassion, his absence of decency, I swing my arm toward his forehead. Casually, as if scattering birdseed. Already he has moved down the bench and I strike air, only air. No one notices; it appears as if I am simply signaling a play or stretching my arm, awkwardly, from deep at the shoulder. But, really, I had wanted to hit Noah, intending to slap him hard with my open hand. My mouth turns arid and bitter as tobacco.
“That's
it,” I say to myself, pacing along a small rectangle near the scorer's table. Deck him. Pop him good, in front of his teammates and teachers and sister and your own goddam son.
So now the fire comes in a tidy box, lapping at sides charred and crooked with damage. Thoughts plead for safety: If you really want, slug him with a roll of quarters curled in your palm, the cartilage in his nose splintering
into bloody hangnails of gristle. Stand over his twitching body, cursing, hands pink and jagged. Better: Kick him solid in the ribs and chest with steel-toe workboots. He won't mouth off again; he'll never wear his freakin' earring or show up late for practice. This
cannot
be me, I think, terrified, scratching the flaky skin at my elbow. Not even for an instant. Ugly and raw. It's only in my head, all in my head. But what's to keep the hair-trigger soldered tight?
A sickness I will not be able to vomit away.
Before turning my attention again toward the game, I look down the bench, frightenedâI look to meet Noah's gaze and apologize with a gesture or nod for almost striking him. He does not see me, his head twisted back to find familiar faces in the stands. He does not know that sometimes even coaches, even fathers, fill with awful, hateful thoughts. Especially fathers.
In his two minutes and fourteen seconds of playing time, Cy doesn't exactly distinguish himself. He is called for traveling and once he almost throws a pass into the concession stand. Still, when the buzzer sounds he is the first person I go to, slapping him on the butt and telling him he played well.
It's nice to be undefeated as a coach, even if it is only one game. Certainly, I suppose, it's more satisfying than being 0 and 1. Walking toward my office, I am congratulated by several people. One of them is Calvin, who, leaving Zoe's side, walks over and uncomfortably raises his hand.
“Good game,” he says, peering back toward Zoe.
“Thanks, pal.”
“She made me say it.”
“That's all right. It's a very nice thing to do.”
He shrugs and then tells me that he is hungry.
“We're going to get a quick bite to eat,” I say to Zoe. “You wanna come with?”
She says she would, but she has promised to let her brother use the truck.
“I think we could manage giving you a ride home,” I say, tapping Calvin on the head with my forefinger.
Sitting behind a cheeseburger that nearly eclipses his entire face, Calvin reaches up for a handful of french fries. I had asked the waitress for a booster chair, but Calvin complained, insisting he did not need one. Zoe is talking about the tendons marbling a horse's leg, how the ones down low are often as thin and fragile as lace. However, at the moment I am not listening. Instead, I'm watching as Calvin carefully, deliberately, grabs his burger, the weight of his forearms resting flush against the plate. Slow like porridge, the dish slides forward, hitting Calvin in the chest before landing upside down on his lap. Instantly he begins to wail, pushing himself back from the table and allowing the plate and its substance to roll off his shins and on the floor.