Authors: Geoff Herbach
Bust
During the fall, coaches kept pulling me out of classes for this or that. A recruiter called. A reporter wanted to talk. A buddy was in town and wanted to meet me. Most teachers just went for it. Mr. Linder, however, did not.
In October, he went off on Coach Knautz. He called him a bald-headed Neanderthal in front of the whole class and said he'd flunk me if I ever got pulled from class again (one of many reasons I didn't want to go with Mrs. McGinn the day before).
Apparently, Coach Knautz got the message about interrupting AP English because he didn't barge right in. With about five minutes left to go in the class that Thursday, I could see his round walnut of a head bobbing in the little glass window in the doorway.
“You got company,” Gus whispered.
“Why me?”
“Who else would Knautz be here for?”
My heart began to pound.
“What's that, Gus?” Mr. Linder asked.
“Felton has an escort waiting at the door,” Gus said.
“Business gets in the way of art again, huh?” Linder said. “You're walking on thin ice, my friend.”
“I know,” I said.
When the bell rang, I bolted for the door.
“Hey,” I said to Knautz in the hall. I was breathing hard.
“A word. Now,” Knautz said. He was sweating. He looked ill.
“What is it?” I asked.
I
know.
Cody
told. He has no reason to protect you.
“Get your ass to my office, Rein Stone.”
Knautz plowed through the corridors, kids falling to the side in his wake. I scurried along behind him like a scared dog. He bowled through the commons and my stomach dropped and my heart ached and pain fired into my arms and legs.
This
is
it. This is it. This is happening.
It felt like I was floating on the ceiling, looking down at my doomed body walking.
We arrived in his office and he held the door. When I walked in, he slammed it behind me. His lips quivered. His eyes were blood. He walked to the other side of his desk and slammed his palms onto the top.
I jumped.
“Sit down,” he said.
I sat.
He leaned over the desk. He shook his head. “What have you been doing to prepare for the track season?” he hissed.
“I don't know. Iâ¦I've been running a lot. I've been doing stairs and⦔
“You're in a fishbowl. You're a target. You can't screw up.
What
have
you
been
doing
to
prepare
for
the
track
season?
” he shouted.
“Iâ¦I've been training a ton. I can't stop running.”
“I know. I know, Rein Stone. I heard about your workout.”
“What?” I gulped for air.
“Getting wasted? Drinking yourself stupid?”
“No.”
“Why would you do that? Why couldn't you wait?” he shouted. “
Answer
me!
”
“I don't know,” I whispered.
“You've got everything you want. You have your free ride and your football championship and your hot girlfriend. What about your teammates? What about your friends who have just one more shot at winning something big, at grabbing for something they'll remember for the rest of their lives? Do you think Karpinski is going to play college sports? Do you think Hinkins or Hoyme or Satish are ever going to have another shot at doing this?”
“No. I didn't think⦔
“You didn't think.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Too damn bad.”
“What?” I gulped for air.
“You just wrestled our shot at winning the team trophy away from all those guys who have busted their asses for years.”
“No. Coach. Iâ¦I⦔
“
You
got
drunk
and
you
got
stupid
and
you
are
done!
” he shouted.
“I can't⦔
“Get out of my office, Reinstein.” Big drops of sweat bubbled on his red face. He hissed, “I've wasted too much time on your prima-donna ass. Get out now!”
I stood. The room spun. I slid back down into the chair. My breath couldn't go into my lungs right.
He stared at me. “You better be the hell out when I get back.”
And then, Coach Knautz, the guy who found me, who guided me onto the team as a sophomore, who protected me from the seniors that wanted to knock me down, tore out of his office. He slammed the door so hard, it bounced back open and crashed against the cinder block wall so that the whole room trembled.
Freshmen gym students came running to see what had happened. They stuck their heads in the door.
Me? I trembled.
Run
I didn't go back to school. I left out the west doors of the gym and escaped into the parking lot.
Thank God it was warm enough.
Thank God my keys were in my jeans pocket.
Go.
I unlocked my bike and I tore out of the lot, accelerating, pedaling as hard as I could.
Instead of going back into town, I crushed the pedals, heading toward the big M, the hill east of town that has a giant M built from painted boulders on its side. (M because Bluffton had a mining college.)
I pressed.
I'd blown up my team. My friends.
My knees felt like they'd break. My triceps were pooled lava from holding myself up on the handlebars. Worse, my quads felt like they'd explode, but I pressed. I rolled into the park at the foot of the M. Let my bike drop. Stumbled to a picnic table and lay down on my back. Blinked at that weird, winter blue sky that was warm when it should be cold.
This
is
a
bad
world. Broken.
I sucked for air. My chest collapsed, inflated, collapsed. My lungs burned.
This has been my place, this M. My dad took me here when I was tiny. This is where I ran off Jerri's insanity when I was a fifteen-year-old squirrel. This is where I breathed, going up and down the thing, when college recruiting felt like it would crush me. Cody, Karpinski, Abby, Reese, and Jessâwe'd come here on summer nights to watch the twinkling lights of our tiny hometown. But mostly, this was where I'd run and run and run.
I lay there on that picnic table, energy flowing out of me.
I couldn't run.
Culture of Violence
I think I fell asleep on that picnic table. I sat up shivering, sweating in my coat. The sun was beginning to set over Bluffton.
I'd left my phone in my locker, so I wasn't getting texts telling me what a jerk I was for blowing up the track season.
Good one rein stone screwing it for everyoneâ¦
I didn't want to go home, but I didn't have any place else to go, so I biked slow into town and up past the high school. There were a few cars in the parking lot. Basketball practice was going. Cody's truck was there.
I turned right at the edge of the high school grounds. I pedaled for a couple football fields on Highway 18 (semis passing me, blowing me sideways). When I hit Ridge Road, I took a left and biked along the south end of Legion Field and then I saw something in the long shadows of the baseball field's stands.
Tommy Bode.
He was in front of someone. He was screaming. Then he was scuffling with someone.
Who
would
beat
up
a
kid
who
lost
his
brother?
I pulled my wheel up over the curb and pressed hard, accelerating through mud and muck until I was up to them. I threw down my bike and leapt on top of the other kid, pulling him out of Pig Boy's grip, lifting him up by his armpit and leg, whipping him to the side, his head cracking against the aluminum of the baseball stands. The kid started screaming. Blood poured from a gash above his eye.
Pig Boyâhot, red, sweatingâcried, “What did you do?”
“No one can hurt you,” I shouted.
“But I was winning! I was winning! I was killing him!”
I looked at the screaming kid. I recognized him. It was Ryan Bennett. He was not big.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Ryan screamed. Blood ran down his hand, which he used to cover his wound. “Leave me alone!” he screamed.
“Holy shit, Tommy,” I said. “A little kid?”
Ryan started to run.
I ran after him. “Are you okay? Do you need help? Can I ride you to the hospital? Do you have a phone? I can call your mom.”
“Leave me alone!” he screamed again.
He kept running. I stopped chasing. I stood there.
What
next? Call police? Arrest yourself for criminal assault on a little kid?
I leaned over, hands on knees, trying to catch my breath. Nothing felt real.
I turned and stumbled back toward my bike. I had to swallow so I wouldn't throw up.
Pig Boy stood there.
“I was winning,” Pig Boy said.
“Not now, okay?” I gulped.
“Why'd you do that?” he asked.
“I don't want you hurt.”
“But you didn't have to do that. I chased him down on my bike. He tried to run.”
I stood straight. I stared at Tommy. “You chased him. You wanted this?”
“I saw him walking and wanted to tell him that he was mean to Curtis. So I chased him and I pushed him and put him in a headlock and we fell over and then you came and picked him up.”
“Oh shit, Tommy,” I said.
“You whipped him like a bag of potatoes.”
“I don't know what I'm doing.”
“I'll find him again and finish this,” Tommy said.
“
Noâ¦No!
” I shouted.
“It's my job to fight evil,” he said.
“No, you idiot. That kidâ¦that kid isn't evil. He's a little puke piece of shit, but⦔ I caught my breath. I nodded. Talked fast. “We have to apologize. You want to come to Ryan's with me? We can explain about Curtis.”
“No.” Pig Boy shook his head. “My elbow hurts.” Pig Boy climbed on his crap bike and rolled away.
I nodded.
Of
course. Of course.
It had been a dozen years since my dad killed himself and I was still freaking out. Curtis had died five weeks earlier. Tommy would be crazy forever. But Tommy had it worse. I never had an older kid in my ear, filling me with shit, saying I was his sidekick, agreeing to fight evil. What if I turned Pig Boy into a murderer?
Look at you. You set in motion the events to hurt everyone.
No. He needs to be powerful.
I don't know. Oh shit. Oh shit.
I got on my bike. I rolled home, snuck inside (Jerri was upstairs), and fell over into my bed, and after three hours of this sickness in my gut, loss of track, Pig Boy murderer, Karpinski gone from school, seeing no path out, no path, I thought:
what about a beer?
Me and Hamlet, Two Nuts in a Sack
Then all night. I couldn't sleep because my heart was racing.
No Andrew. No Aleah. No Gus. They didn't understand. They couldn't.
In this weird fever, I saw Dad's rope. I saw it in my hands.
Why?
Abby. She understood the slings and arrows. The mortal coil. She'd kept the killer snake away with peach schnapps.
That's not rope.
She understood. At 4 a.m., I looked for my phone so I could call her. Couldn't find it. Turned over my bed. Did it slide against the wall? No.
Then I remembered. It was in my locker at school.
I tried to breathe. I put my bed together. I lay there staring at the ceiling.
Go to school. Face your shit so you can get your phoneâ¦no schnapps left at Abby'sâ¦her mom broke the boozeâ¦go in Abby's car to Cal's barn.
Maybe I slept for a few minutes? Not really.
At 7:30, I rolled out of bed. I didn't shower. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, tried to keep breathing.
What would I face at school? I'd skipped the last couple hours.
Detention?
I'd been kicked off track, which made me want to break my own face.
They
will
scream
at
you? Hate you?
You
hate
yourself! The town will know everything.
I'd beaten up an eighth grader. He bled.
The
cops
will
come. They should come for you.
Jerri wasn't awake yet. I moved quietly through the house. Ate a piece of dry bread to stop my stomach from rotting, then went out through the garage, muscles trembling.
I rode to school slowly, sick but ready to face what was coming so I could get my phone and Abby.
Maybe not readyâ¦
I locked my bike and sucked for air.
Find
Abby. Keep it together. Find Abby.
I moved toward the doors. Bony Emily passed me on the way in.
“Hi, Felton!”
So did Kirk Johnson, who is on the 4x100 relay with me. “Hey, man,” he said. He was carrying a dozen roses. I stared at the flowers.
Is
this
a
dream?
I followed him through the doors and into the chemical-smelling commons, where all the kids gather before the bell rings. Lots of people had flowers. Lots of people were eating from candy boxes. Valentine's Day. I was so checked out that I didn't even know.
And nobody glared at me. No one even looked?
I picked up speed and turned toward the hall where the senior lockers are.
Two seconds earlier, I'd just wanted to see Abby. Then I saw her and she smiled and she carried a white flower and I didn't want to see her. I wanted to look at my phone to see if the cops had called about Ryan Bennett because they should've called.
Abby: “There you are. You okay? Man, I was worried about you last night. I tried to drive over, but the Buick bit it in front of Weber's! Dead! I wish Jerri would let you plug in your landline. It sucks when your phone is dead. What should I do about my car? We can't get to Walmart to study without it. Hey, I got this white flower from the student council for you!”
I kept walking while she talked. She grabbed my wrist and pulled.
“Whoa, dude. Slow down. What's up? What's wrong with your hair? You look like a homeless guy. What's going on?”
“I don't know. You didn't hear anything?”
“About what?” Abby asked. “Nolan told me Knautz got mad at you for not getting in shape. He yelled at you in the locker room? Is that what you're talking about? Did you run last night? Is that why you didn't call?”
“Noâ¦Iâ¦I forgot my phone here.”
“You need to work out a lot before we hang tonight? I totally get it, Felton. We have to stay on top of⦔
“No,” I spat. “You don't get it.”
Abby shook her head. Her eyes watered. “What is up, dude?”
“Nothing. Okay? Let's talk later, okay, Abby? I have to get to⦔
“You are not okay,” she whispered.
“Let's talk later.”
“Felton?” she said.
“Later.”
I turned a cornerânot to my locker but to get away from Abby. I turned into some random hall filled with lockers (freshman lockers and kids with flowers). There was Nolan Sauter.
Jesus. Ryan told him. He had to. I knowâ¦
“Hey, man,” he said.
I nodded.
“Sorry Knautz yelled at you,” he said.
Was he trying to be nice? Ryan Bennett didn't tell him I'd popped his freaking coconut? And why the hell didn't anyone know I was kicked off the freaking track team? This was huge news! I needed someone to come after me to make it real.
I buzzed around a corner and down a hall and around another and down another hall and no one said one bad word to me, but I deserved terrible words, brutal wordsâ
You
should
go
into
Knautz's office so he can scream at you again
âand then the bell rang. I ran to my locker to get books.
In my locker? My phone. Other than three texts from Abby, there were no new messages, no voicemails. Nothing.
***
In class, people were chipper. “Hi!” It was a happy day. Valentine's Day. Everybody munched on candy.
Where's Knautz? Where are the cops? Where's Karpinski?
After class, I practically ran up to Cody when I saw him in the hall because I figured he'd know it allâbecause he knows everything terrible I do.
“Hey,” I said. I nodded at him. He wore a red flower pinned on his shirt.
“What?” he asked.
“Where's Karpinski?” I asked.
“Gone.”
“Why's he gone?” I asked.
“Embarrassed.” Cody turned his back and opened his locker. I took off.
At lunch, I asked Abby, “Is Karpinski sick? Is he okay? Have you heard?”
“I don't know, man. Should I ask Jess? I'll ask her. Do you want me to call him?”
“Did he quit school?”
Abby furrowed her brow. She shook her head a little. “Felton. You are the opposite of calm, man,” she said. “You have to tell me what's going on.”
“Nothing,” I said.
Shut
up. Om shanti. Be quiet.
I tried to keep my mouth shut the rest of lunch.
“Om shanti” is the peace chant Jerri taught me when I was a kid and she was a serious freak. I'd say it out loud and people would kick my ass.
***
I got to Linder's, to AP English. Gus sat in the chair next to mine. He wore a black Valentine's flower. Maddie's joke. He said, “Hey, did you see the Dickinski video from that group of black dudes in Las Vegas?”
“What?”
“They did a really hilarious “Jamaican Fist” video. They blow magical ganja smoke on ladies. That's the best knockoff so far. You should check it out.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“What? Are you kidding?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing personal.”
“Yeah, right,” Gus said.
Linder started class. More
Hamlet
. I didn't want to think about Hamlet. No slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Wasn't living through this shit enough? We had to read about it too?
“Do crazy people know when they're crazy?” Linder asked.
Carrie Smith, this nerdy junior girl said, “No. They totally can't tell. My uncle Mark is schizoid and he thinks he's, like, the height of clear brained when he's totally, like, hearing ghost voices in his head. License plate numbers told him he was the reincarnation of Gandhi once.”
“Tough,” Linder said. “How about this? What if you're a little off, a little cloudy? Do you know something's wrong then?”
Several people raised their hands and nodded.
“I know when I'm not right with the world,” said Kayla Zielsdorf. “I just feel confused and can't decide about anything, like what I'm going to wear or eat or whatever.”
You don't know the meaning of off!
I screamed in my brain.
“Was Hamlet crazy? Did he know his behavior was off? Was it all a plan?” Linder asked.
Then Mrs. McGinn knocked on the door.
“Oh my God. Now what?” Linder spat. “Interrupted three days in a row.”
Oh this is it. The cops are here. This is the time when the cuffs come out and you get hauled down to the lockup for crushing a kid against a bleacher. Please. Yes. Bring it onâ¦
Linder opened the door. “We don't want any,” he said.
“Special delivery,” Mrs. McGinn said. She handed Linder a box.
“Of course,” he said, “Addressed to Prince Reinstein of Bluffton. Who else?”
“It's probably a bomb,” I said.
Everyone laughed. I didn't laugh.
Linder handed it to me. “Go ahead. We're derailed already. Open it up.”
Everybody stared and nodded and smiled. With a buzzing head and weak, shaking hands, I opened the box. There was a handwritten Stanford University note inside. It said, “Congratulations, Felton!” Then I pulled out the most amazing football jersey I'd ever seen up close. It was that new one: dark red with black numbers. There was a little Nike swish and a black Stanford S just under the neckline. My number 34, but on this beautiful Stanford jersey. On the back it said “REINSTEIN.”
“Number 34!” Kayla said. (She wore a “Bully Me” shirt that Tommy had made.)
“Whoa,” Gus said. “That is cool.”
My AP English classmates applauded.
Me? My brain?
Where
the
hell
are
the
cops?
Where was the hammer from the angry freaking god of track?
Stanford
doesn't know my crimes.
“Was Hamlet crazy? Did he know his behavior was off?” Linder asked.
Hamlet needs a beer. Hamlet needs to lie down.
My classmates applauded.
I stuffed the jersey in my backpack.