Reality Check (2010) (7 page)

The swelling went down. Dr. Pandit took some MRI pictures, found no other damage, operated on Cody. The operation went fine. Not too long after, Cody was back in the gym, first just on the stationary bike, soon lifting light weights, his left leg so weak it shocked him. Cody dealt with that by working out harder and harder, hitting the gym before and after school, icing down his knee in the evenings. Some days the school part didn't happen at all.

On one of those days, he was asleep on the couch, in between workouts, when someone knocked on the door. His mind a little foggy--he'd taken one of Dr. Pandit's Percocets-- Cody rose and opened up.

"Hi," said Tonya Redding. "Hey, did I wake you?" "No," said Cody.
"Bullshit," said Tonya. She handed him a sheaf of papers.

"Mr. Lorrie was looking for someone to bring you the homework assignments. I volunteered--my mom's working downstairs anyway."
"Uh, thanks."
"Say it like you mean it."
Cody didn't say anything.
Tonya looked down at his knee; he had his sweats rolled up

because he'd been icing. "Yuck," she said.
"It's not as bad as it looks."
"Coulda fooled me," Tonya said. She looked over his shoulder. "Cool place," she said. "First time I've been here. Anybody home?"

Tonya laughed that loud laugh of hers. "What about you? Aren't you here? Or is this a ghost I see before me? Got to read act one of
Hamlet
, by the way."

"Not too long--we could go over it together. Like now, if you want."
Cody tried to think up some lie, could not. "Maybe some other time."
Tonya's voice changed. "Sure."
"Thanks. Uh, thanks for the homework."
"You bet," said Tonya.
"No, really," Cody said.
"No problem," Tonya said. She bit her lip. He saw, maybe for the first time, that she had nice lips, full and well shaped. "How's Clea doing?" she said.
"Don't know."
"You haven't heard from her?"
Cody shook his head.
Tonya brightened. "Coming to school tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"See you."

Cody went over the
Hamlet
assignment: Read Act One and answer three of the following five questions. He sat at the kitchen table, opened his copy of
Hamlet
, and started reading. It made no sense to him. The next day he went to the gym three times, but not to school.

one--Cody was asleep on the couch, ice pack on his knee, when the phone rang. The phone didn't actually ring; he had it on vibrate, in his chest pocket. Cody snapped it open.

"Cody?" It was Clea.
"Hi."
"I heard you hurt your knee."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not too bad." He sat up. "Are you here? In town?" "No. I'm at school."
"Darby?"
"Dover," Clea said. "It sounds like I woke you. Didn't you

Had to be Monday. "You didn't wake me," Cody said. "How are . . . things?"
"No complaints."
"What's it like?"
"Different," Clea said.
"Like how?"
"Hard to describe. Kind of amazing, really--the buildings, the landscape, the teachers. Bud loves it here." Clea laughed.
That laugh: one of the best sounds he'd ever heard. "He's so funny," she said, and started in on a story about some adventure of Bud's, a story that Cody lost track of, maybe because of the Percocet, or because he wasn't quite awake yet, but he got caught up in the sound of her voice and that was enough. After a while came a silence; had he missed something? "Cody?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"I asked you if it hurts."
"If what hurts?"
"Your knee, of course."
"Nah," said Cody.
"But I heard you're out for the season."
"Who told you that?"
"A few kids." She named them, all from the highest academic classes at County, none well known to Cody.
"Yeah, well, no big deal," said Cody.
"But you're still . . . keeping your grades up, and everything?" Clea said.
"As always."
She laughed; he laughed, too--long and unrestrained, and felt better than he had for days--since that first visit to Dr. Pandit. Then, in the background, he heard a voice, a guy's voice: "Hey, Clea, all set?"
"Cody?" she said. "Got to go. I just . . . hope you're all right, that's all."
"Christ," said Cody, his mood changing fast. "I'm fine." He clicked off.

Cody had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Pandit. "Fine range of motion for this stage of recovery," Dr. Pandit said in the examining room. "Impressive strength."

"So I'm ahead of schedule?" Cody said.
"Absolutely," said Dr. Pandit, writing on a pad.
"If I keep on being ahead of schedule, do you think, um,

well . . ."
"Think what, Cody?"
"That I can maybe get back on the field? This season, I

Dr. Pandit smiled and shook his head. "Afraid not," he said. "But keep up the good work. In moderation, of course. Healing takes time."

The Rattlers were in a tailspin. Coach Huff tried almost everyone at quarterback, without success. At first Cody watched from the sidelines, then from the stands, finally not at all. He tried to catch up with his schoolwork, but his mind refused to concentrate.
Hamlet
, quadratic equations, the Dred Scott case, cellular division: They all mystified him. He stopped doing his homework, fell further and further behind. Mr. Lorrie, his English teacher and faculty adviser, spoke to him after school.

"Sit down, Cody." Cody sat. Mr. Lorrie, a nice old guy with a droopy face, gazed at him from across the desk. "How's the leg?"

Mr. Lorrie nodded. "Glad to hear it," he said. "Although Coach Huff told me the unhappy news that you're done for the season."

"The thing is, Cody, there's more to high school than just sports."
Cody said nothing. He wanted to be out of there.
"Have you ever thought about what you'll be doing," Mr. Lorrie said, "say, three years from now?"
"I'm all ears," said Mr. Lorrie.
"College," Cody said. "I'll be going to college."
"And studying what?"
Cody shrugged.
"How about after college--what about then?"
"That's a long time away," Cody said.
"You're wrong," said Mr. Lorrie. He snapped his fingers, a surprisingly loud sound in his cluttered little office. "It's that soon," he said.
Cody didn't believe that. He was starting to find Mr. Lorrie not so likable.
"Tell me this," Mr. Lorrie said: "What are you passionate about?"
"Passionate?"
"What do you like to do, most of all? For example, my passion is teaching."
That was easy: Football was Cody's passion. Was it possible that someone could care about teaching a roomful of kids, many of whom didn't even want to be there, as much as he cared about football? But Cody sensed that football was the wrong answer and stayed mum.
"Let me guess," said Mr. Lorrie. "Your passion is playing football."
"Football," Mr. Lorrie said. "We're getting somewhere. Too bad about your knee, but I assume you want to play next season."
Of course he wanted to play next season. The problem, as his father had pointed out, was the importance of junior year when it came to attracting college attention. Cody didn't get into all that with Mr. Lorrie, just said, "Yeah."
"In order to do that," Mr. Lorrie said, "you've got to be academically eligible. Which means" --he opened a folder, glanced at a sheet of paper--"you're going to have to get with the program in terms of your classwork." He leaned forward. "If grades were submitted today, you'd be failing every subject, Cody. Every single one, including mine. You got a zero on the first
Hamlet
quiz. You're a bright kid--how did that happen?"
Cody stared back at Mr. Lorrie, said nothing.
"There's after-school academic help, Tuesdays and Thursdays," Mr. Lorrie said. "Room four-one-nine for juniors. Plus I'm just about always here for half an hour or so after the last bell."
Hanging around the school for longer than he had to, maybe hearing the thump of a punted football coming from the practice field while he labored over some assignment? No way. And Mr. Lorrie had it wrong about him being a bright kid. That was so ridiculous, it must have been some strategy, maybe to pump him up.
"So, Cody, what do you say?"
"I'll do better," Cody said. "But on my own."
Mr. Lorrie frowned and closed the folder.

Cody tried to do better. Was there any choice? Not if he wanted to keep playing football. Was there a chance he could still be recruited? Had to be. Hadn't he read somewhere--maybe on ESPN.com--about some big NFL star who'd missed his whole junior year of high school, possibly more? Cody spent some time online searching for the story, but never found it.

Trying to do better meant flushing the remaining Percocet pills down the toilet. It meant not merely arriving at school on time and staying all day, but really paying attention in class. That was the hard part: His mind would not cooperate, insisted on tuning out after ten minutes, or five, or three, so that whatever the teacher was saying didn't even sound like English, and whatever was written on the page twisted into an uncrackable code.

After school, Cody hit the gym, then went right to the apartment, where he'd open his school books and fall asleep over them. That was another problem. He was sleepy, very sleepy, almost all the time. On nights his father didn't come home, Cody often slept all the way from homework time till the ringing of that five-thirty alarm, especially if he'd tried doing his homework on the couch. On nights his father did come home, he would wake Cody and say, "Hittin' the books pretty hard this year, huh?" And Cody would pull out the pull-out part of the couch and crawl under the covers.