The War Against the Assholes (18 page)

Green dress and sickle. This explained, more or less, everything. Which side I was on. Why. In the end, you have to side with the few, the damaged. With the hunchback farmer and the ape trainer. If for no other reason than simple perversity. If I died now, I would at least die knowing. “There's more,” said Alabama. She had to struggle to speak. The river noise kept rising and rising. Beneath it a drilling white hum. A thread of mike feedback. Each arch enclosed another huge image. The Massacre of Amiens: Messaline standing apart from her hundred brethren. Who already had branches in place of arms and kinked roots instead of legs, and Perrin de Cissey smiling slyly (Potash had smiled that same smile) and gesturing at the witches and warlocks with a long silver wand. He had black hair and eyebrows. A heavy chin. A thickened, pugnacious nose. A real motherfucker. Other scenes: I didn't recognize them. Three men in togas standing on a cliff, clustered around a snake encircling the stem of a golden basin. A woman with violet, cloudy hair mounted on a white horse, holding a green-and-red bantam rooster in her left palm and what appeared to be the planet Earth in her right. A family—young father, young mother, and child—crossing a snowfield and leaving no track, no footprint, accompanied by two gazelles. “Pelagea and Ariston,” I heard Alabama say. Barely. Pointing at the young couple. Their gazes fixed on each other. Each holding one of their child's hands.

And blood on her upper lip. Alabama's, I mean. I called to her. The river noise blotted it out. It had risen. I was certain of this. I touched my own lip. Drenched in blood. When I grabbed Alabama's shoulder she looked at me with half-lidded eyes. Dazed, glassy. The blood covered her mouth. Her chin. My palm was slick and tacky with my own blood. The noise of the river penetrated my skull. Vibrated in my brain and chest cavity. My kneecaps and fingertips. Eyelids slipping down. Despite my leaking nose and the insane thunder of the river, I was almost at the edge of sleep. A light, heavy sensation. Your limbs relax. You stare down into a black crevasse, warm and healing. And then you're asleep. The noise of the river brought us both to our knees. Facing the statue of the woman with the phial. Her face calm and blank as ever. Despite the pain the river sound inflicted. Her stone hair. Her stone eyelashes. Immobile. We knelt before her. As though we belonged to her sect. I saw a thin thread of blood descending from Alabama's ear. Over the lobe and down her neck. Beside the delicate tattoo of the vine. I was too afraid to check my own ears. The thrumming and throbbing of the river sound grew and grew. It made me nauseated. It altered my vision: the face of the statue began to shift and change. A cruel, capacious smile. Pointed teeth. A horned mask. The frescoes stretched and flowed as well. Their colors pulsating. Alabama was heaving deep breaths. No sound. I watched her rib cage inflate and deflate. I held back vomit. I wanted to fall into unconsciousness. I did not allow myself. I bit the inner skin of my cheek. Where the molar tore it. When Greg Gilder hit me.

Alabama was crawling. Toward the exit, I thought. We'd never make it. The sound would kill us first. Heart attack. Embolism. Simple flickering out of the soul. Then I realized she was crawling toward the statue. Toward the water boiling down below its base. I bellowed to her. Nothing comprehensible. No need to come up with a good line, under the circumstances. No sound. She looked at me. She gestured with her head. I followed. No choice. I followed on my hands and knees. The pain worsened the closer we got to the river. My skull: close to fragmenting. My heartbeat: accelerated to the point of near-asphyxia. At the edge of the stone Alabama stopped. Waited for me. I managed to get near enough for her to whisper. “Underwater,” she said. Her lips adhesive with blood against my ear. She levered herself out over the white foam of the river. It would kill her. Smash her against the base of the sneering, openmouthed statue. She steadied herself. Plunged in. Her arm thrashed up. Went under. I said good-bye to her. Inside my about-to-split-apart head. I dragged myself up. I smelled the mineral smell of the water. Anything's better than drowning, I once believed. Not true. My shoes scraped the temple floor. My head and shoulder hit the twisted surface of the water. I was in the river. Hurled left and right. Tossed. Suffocating. I could not see Alabama. The pain had stopped. My blood drifted around me in red threads. Now I was beneath the statue. Carried beneath it. The opening in the stone floor of the temple, a circle of light, diminishing and diminishing. Soon the water was dim. Blue. Night-blue. Black. My air almost gone. I kicked my legs and swam. Upward. Nothing. No cavern ceiling. Just more cool, utterly black water. A faint glimmer of white under my feet. I dragged myself farther upward. My lungs flaming. Vertigo. I wanted to open my mouth and inhale. Drink the black water. Just to end it. To get out from under the weight. I kept swimming. The white glimmer spread. Up from my feet. Up to my head. My eyes and ears. Sound of radio static. Smell of metal. Taste of ozone. This void. Absolute.

25

N
othing ever turns out the way you imagine it will. You think there's going to be someone telling you the great and painful secrets of this world. Or opening a golden, final doorway. Beyond which would lie what, exactly? At least that's what you spend your childhood, boyhood, and youth thinking. But that's not what happens. What happens is: your alarm clock wakes you up, painfully, from a dream, and you can't really remember any of it. I've never liked sleeping. I'd been feeling sick, or half-sick, for weeks. Since before Christmas. My body constantly aching. I never missed practice. I never missed school. Probably just the flu. I hadn't been running a fever. Although I caught myself thinking that I had lost a large swath of my time, the way you do after a fever.

I had to keep shaking my head. To clear the dregs of this complicated dream. A repeat. Ten, eleven times I'd woken with scraps of it still vivid in my memory. A bearded man. A boy in the air. A long, delightful, worrying, inexplicable story. That was the day my father finally stopped giving me shit about my tattoo. I'd gotten it in a fit of drunken inspiration, with Greg Gilder and Frank Santone and Simon Canary. We'd been high and drunk at Simon's house. “Didn't you like try to bone Maggie Ravapinto here,” said Simon. This was true. I'd passed out, though, before I could do the deed. I don't think she'd forgiven me. Or ever would. Gilder chuckled. “Limpdick,” he said. “Why are you so concerned about my dick,” I said. Simon told us he knew a place where they'd give you a tattoo without ID-ing you. So we went. We were completely hammered by the time we got there. The guy giving the tattoos didn't care. He was middle-aged, black, bearded. I chose mine—an eye, an open eye—out of a thin green book of samples. “Now, that is what I call an excellent decision,” he said. My father freaked out when he saw it. “It's a team thing,” I told him. At times he let me off the hook for acts done in the name of team spirit. “You better hope it's temporary,” he said. He and my mother got used to it. You can get used to anything.

My father was in the kitchen. Wearing his tennis outfit. Crimson tracksuit. Yellow sweatband. Critics could say he looked ridiculous. I thought he looked like a pro. “I think I'm finally getting used to it,” he said. “To your new racket,” I said. He'd bought himself one for Christmas. White and black polymer. The size of a snowshoe. “No, to your portable artwork,” he said. Pointing with his cup of coffee. “When I was a kid the only people who had tattoos were in the navy, more or less,” he said. In the apartment beneath us, Mrs. Lorbeerbaum started yelling at her husband. “Then again other people have real problems,” said my father. “That's true,” I said. “Good luck,” said my father, “though I doubt you'll need it.”

I was playing a weekender that day. Against Cardinal Corrigan. I was looking forward to it. After our last game against them I'd beaten up two guys from the team, two brothers. They'd attacked me as I was walking to the subway. Desmond and James. I'd hurt them both. I hoped I'd have another opportunity to. You win a fistfight, you can't then consider the matter closed. The matter's just beginning. I whistled as I showered. This one repeated phrase. Don't know where I got it. I'd been whistling and humming it also since around Christmas, it seemed to me. It brought to mind the guy who'd given me my tattoo. Didn't know why. Maybe he'd been humming it as he worked. Maybe the vibrating, thrumming noise of the tattoo needle had obscured it. It had been shockingly loud. Then again I'd never gotten a tattoo before, so I had nothing to compare it to. My mother: still asleep when I grabbed my bag and left. I had to get to school to meet the team. Coach Madigan liked to give us a brief talk in the gym before we piled into his van. Painted blue and white, the school colors. I think he did the paint job himself. Looked totally jank.

Gilder's hoots filled the gym air when I arrived: “Who wants some? Who wants some?” Amplified and doubled by the echo. He danced around the school seal painted on the wood floor, punching the air. Gilder was a big precelebrator. Simon Canary: also present. Wearing the utterly terrified look he wore before every game. He was small and thin but he was extremely fast and agile, with huge hands. Coach Madigan had made him a halfback. One of those seemingly non­sensical decisions that proves to be epically right. Simon, running breakneck, gasping with fear and exaltation, between the guys trying to bring him down, was our most reliable scorer. His before-game face made me wonder what face guys who jump out of planes for kicks must make as they stand in the open bay door and try to remember if they folded their parachute correctly. Eyes large, terrified, and exalted. Grinning against his will. I greeted Gilder. I greeted Canary.

“Settle down, gentlemen,” said Coach Madigan. Gilder stopped dancing and hooting. Coach Madigan drew a big breath and took off his ball cap. He removed his hat before any speechmaking. Sign of respect, maybe. Today's theme: appearance and reality. We'd all heard this sermon before. He had thirty or forty. On the value of hard work, the nearness of death, the importance of correct diet, the care of our immortal souls. He delivered them in a rough cyclical order. If you stuck it out on the team long enough, you heard the cycle repeat. “We live in the world of appearances,” began Coach Madigan, “but, gentlemen, the world of appearances is not to be trusted. The guy who you think will be weak”—here he gestured at Simon—“is indispensable to success. The guy who you think will be an idiot”—and here he gestured at me, which provoked everyone to guttural laughter—“turns out to be less of an idiot, and a huge blasted asset out there on the field. You know who we're playing. You've played them before. You've beaten them before. Don't let that fool you, either. The appearance of your enemy remains the same, but his nature always changes. Through wisdom, perseverance, and freedom from fear, you will win. Appearance. Reality. Gentlemen, don't get confused by this unpredictable life. I'm here if you have any questions. Now take a knee.” We did. He led us in an Ave Maria. In Latin.
Gratia plena.
It was a tic of his. A superstition.

A boy in the air. A man with a beard. A human cry. That dream. Couldn't shake it. I sat in the back of Coach Madigan's van. We piled in alphabetically by last name, which meant that Dalmacio Zingales would have been the only person who went in after me. But since he lived in the Bronx, Coach Madigan didn't make him come down to Cyprian's before games against Corrigan, which he could walk to. Coach Madigan was not an officious man.

Blue, hard sky. Carved-looking white clouds. The yellow sunlight of winter. No traffic. The bare trees waving in a stiff wind off the Hudson. Gilder did an impression of the headmaster of Cardinal Corrigan, Brother Ignatius, widely regarded to be a pederast. “If that child molester gets anywhere near me,” said Frank Santone, “he'll end up in the next world.” “The next world, Mr. Santone,” said Coach Madigan, “that's an archaic way of putting it.” “Well, I'm an archaic guy, coach,” said Santone. I was 90 percent sure Santone didn't know what
archaic
meant. We reached the Corrigan campus. We drove past the sleeping guard in his green-roofed guard shack. We had a guy of that species: Officer Houghtailing, but he slept in a small room off our main lobby.
RUIZ
, read this one's name tag. Why were these men, I wondered, in charge of our protection, always asleep? The thought disturbed me. Anxiety or misery constricted my throat. We had to drive all the way to the ass end of Corrigan's green, hilly campus to find a spot. The Corrigan guys did this on purpose. To make us walk to the field house. To psych us out. We saw their black-and-gold colors and emblem everywhere. Bunting on the fence. Fake plastic crows taped to every tree. The Corrigan Crow stares down at you with sly, human eyes, and he's smoking a stub cigar. Wearing a cocked brown hat with a white card tucked into the brim that says
PRO FIDE ET PATRIA
. This stupid cartoon.

Black and yellow everywhere in the field house, too. Corrigan's coach, Coach Pizzuta, was five foot one, five foot two. Must have weighed nearly two hundred pounds. All of it, you could tell, muscle. Even the fringe of gray hair around the top of his neck looked strong. He and Coach Madigan shook hands. That's when I saw him. The guy who'd given me my tattoo. Through the window of the field house. Walking along in the brilliant winter sunlight, wearing a black coat and a gray fedora and leaning on a cane with a silver head. “Look at that guy,” I whispered to Gilder as Coach Madigan and Coach Pizzuta exchanged in hushed, serious voices tips for deck treatments. “He must live up here.” “What guy,” said Gilder. “That guy in the coat. He's the one who tattooed us.” “What are you talking about, Wood,” said Gilder. The fedora guy: gone now from the window's scope of view. “Never mind, it doesn't matter,” I said. “You're goddamn right it doesn't,” said Gilder, “nothing matters except getting out there and kicking their faggot asses.” He had a real gift for dialogue.

Green, green grass. All colors become more intense in winter sunlight. Out on the field, breath rose in weak ribbons from within the helmets of the Crows, gold with a black stripe and an image of their mascot on either side. “
Pro
faggots
et
pedophiles,” muttered Frank Santone. I saw the Berry brothers. They both played in the offensive line. I lined up against James. Gilder hiked the ball. Santone dropped back. James leaped toward me. Desmond, next to him, smiled. The world seemed to slow down. One blink. Two. I hit James low. I hit Desmond high. I planned to do this all afternoon. I knew I'd be able to. If you're easily entertained, as I am, football is by far the best sport. Repetitive. Violent. You don't have much time for calculation. You come out of your starting position. You act. Black and gold dazzling in the steely sunlight. The crammed stands. Men my parents' age cheering. My own parents could not come. My mother had to work. My father had his weekly tennis date. Iron and unbreakable. I didn't blame them. I wouldn't want to waste a day with the fools in the stands.

I hit James low. I hit him high. I hit Desmond low. I hit him high. I hit both of them late. I managed a subtle face-mask of James. I managed a knee to Desmond's balls. The refs did not notice. I decided that if either of the brothers complained, I would hurt them even worse. To my surprise, neither of them did. Desmond went white-faced, then red. That's all. By the half, we were up seven–nothing. Simon Canary had snaked a touchdown. Matt Malinowski, our one-eyed kicker, hit the extra point. He hardly ever missed. Despite lacking depth perception. Call it pure art. “That's right, you homos,” Greg Gilder screamed, “that's how we do in the two one two.” As I said: a real dialogue expert.

The Crows didn't respond. Shadow covered their quarterback's face. He gave Gilder a silent finger. Cyprian's fans in the stands. Their wet, dark mouths torn open. Their eyes wide. The Crows drove four times and failed. They kicked off to us. The whistle for the half blew. We were filing into the locker room for the break when I noticed him. The guy in the black coat and gray hat, I mean. I would never have seen him if one of the stand dads—couldn't tell if he backed us or the Crows—hadn't fallen over. Loose-eyed drunk. His flailing attracted my attention. Next to him the guy in question. Staring at me. Not with anger or the grin of team support. With a kind of curious pity. I had sworn it was the guy who gave me my tattoo. Now I was less sure. I knew him. Maybe. I hated it when strangers stared at me. I hated it more when my memory failed.