Necessary Roughness (17 page)

“People here want to help,” she told me. She passed the cards on to O-Ma and Abogee and secretly put the money in a savings account and gave me the passbook. “You will need this for college,” she said.

Five thirty. Time to go to practice. Two-a-days and weight training.
We have a long journey ahead of us,
Coach said in my dream.
Might as well enjoy the ride.

I blinked. Football didn’t mean the same thing to me anymore. What was different? I was tired. So tired.

Seven o’clock. Time to get up for school.

Seven thirty. Need to leave for school.

Seven fifty. It’s too late. Why can’t I get up?

Because I’m waiting for Young. I’m waiting for her to come up here and say, “Yo! Get your lazy butt out of bed, Oppa. I know you’re not sick, just avoiding reality.”

But she’s not here. She’s gone. Forever.

I pulled the covers over my head, closed my eyes, and slept for another few hours.

When I just couldn’t sleep anymore, I wandered around the house. O-Ma and Abogee were gone. They’d left me a note saying I didn’t have to go to
school. Mrs. Knutson was out somewhere too. She’d left me a pile of peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches, some wild-rice-and-sausage hotdish. The house was quiet. So quiet.

I grabbed the sandwiches off the counter.

I walked into school just as classes were breaking for lunch. All eyes were on me, like I was a rare butterfly impaled under glass. This time I wasn’t Chan the New Boy Who Is Also Asian. I was Chan the Kid Who Lost His Sister.

The crowd parted like the Red Sea to let me pass. I wanted to tell them death wasn’t catching. My feet, through force of habit, made their way to the gym.

The guys looked at me like I was Jesus, or Lazarus, or Elvis after the resurrection. Take your pick.

“Hi,” said
ALL-PRO.

“Hey, Chan,” said Leland. Everyone else was silent. Staring.

“So I guess you’re not coming to practice, huh?”
ALL-PRO
said to me after lunch.

I shook my head. “Are you?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t gone all week.” My perception of things had totally changed, the way a kaleidoscope does when you twist the knob. Football had once been the center of my universe. Now, with life and death intruding, I saw it for what
it was: a colossal waste of time. It shouldn’t have ever mattered, but it had. So I was stupid and Abogee had been right all along.

“You’re not actually thinking about going, are you?”

ALL-PRO
studied his Sambas. “I think it might help, you know. The team needs us. No use sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.”

Everything was coming to a slow, rolling stop.

“Young is dead and you’re thinking about playing
football?”
Gray spots began to dance before my eyes.

“Chan, listen. I know she’s dead. We can’t do anything about it.” ALL-PRO’S hand, holding a carton of milk, trembled, and a few white drops spilled out. “So why can’t we finish what we started on the field? This means a lot to us, to the town.”

“I can’t believe this! She’s not even cold in the ground and it’s just business as usual for you. I thought you loved her.”

A vein throbbed in Mikko’s temple. His skin was so pale, I could see it clearly.

“I did love her. More than you realize.” ALL-PRO’S voice, usually so low, was strained comically high. “So playing ball has always helped me deal with things. It might even keep me from hurting myself. Is that all right, Your Highness?”

“Yeah, sure. Do whatever the hell you want, you shallow jerk.” I wheeled around and sprinted away,
knocking people over like tenpins. Maybe it was a mistake to come back to school, but I didn’t know, for the life of me, where to go. So I went to Spanish.

I was surprised to see Coach waiting outside the door when the last class ended. He was leaning easily against the lockers, Mr. Casual himself. I blinked.

“How are you, son?”

I shrugged.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“Sure, whatever.” There was no way
he
was going to try to get me to come back to football.

“I’m sorry about your sister. I didn’t know her too well—knew she was an outstanding math student—but I am very sorry.”

“I am too,” I said. My stock answer. I mean, with everyone coming up to you and saying they’re sorry—when you’re beyond sorry—what are you supposed to say?

“Do you have some time to talk?” he said, stopping, as the escaping kids streamed all around us.

“Sure,” I said.

“How does Helga’s Café sound?”

“Don’t you have to go to practice?”

“Kearny’s there. It’s not a problem.”

At Helga’s I had a hot chocolate. Coach drank cups and cups of coffee. I could tell they hadn’t put
enough grounds in it. It probably tasted weak and sour. You get good at gauging these things when you work at a convenience store.

“So what do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing in particular,” Coach said, lifting the chipped cup to his lips yet again. On the far wall an enormous fish was hanging, mouth open, like it was about to chomp on a fly. “I’d like to know how you’re doing, how your family’s doing.”

“About as well as you’d expect.” I placed the hot chocolate in front of me like a barrier.

“What was your sister like?”

“She wasn’t someone you could describe in ten minutes.” The words were so rude, I wished immediately I could take them back. I sighed. “I’m sorry. She was the best, that’s all. It’s hard to talk about.”

Coach looked me in the eye.

“Chan, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. And the team is too.”

I couldn’t look at him. So I looked at his hands, instead. They were tapping the coffee cup. The nails were square, clipped, perfectly clean.

What was I doing here? Too much more of this and I was going to bawl like a baby. I didn’t want him to know how close I was to breaking. To distract myself, I started to blab. I blabbed about Young, about being a twin. About how hard it was to leave L.A. Once the words spilled out, they kept coming, like they had a
life of their own. Before I knew it, I’d blabbed about what had happened in the locker room that cold, lonely day.

When I looked up, Coach’s face scared me.

“Who do you think jumped you?” he breathed.

I sat up. I’d somehow expected Coach not to listen too closely.

“I honestly don’t know.” It was true. I didn’t, really. Okay, maybe there was also some warped sense of loyalty in that answer, but what proof did I have?

“Chan, you have to help me out. I don’t know what-all goes on in the locker room.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said. “What would you be able to do with some wild guess?”

“Get to the bottom of
this.
I don’t want any boy—
any
boy—who engages in that kind of conduct to have the privilege of playing on the team. I mean it. I have to know.”

I focused on my own fingers, nails bitten to the quick. I found myself wishing I’d left something to bite.

“Don’t let me down on this one, son,” Coach said. His eyes were boring two holes into my skull. I would have liked to get up and run screaming from the table, but I was trapped. I tried to distract myself by concentrating on my breathing. No good. It was as if a huge vacuum cleaner had come in and sucked all the air out of Helga’s Café.

“Okay, then,” Coach said, spreading out his two
hands. “I’m just going to start naming names. It wasn’t Sanderson, was it?”

I had an insane urge to laugh. Yeah, right.

“Leland Farrell?”

Coach ticked the names off his fingers. Like bullets.
Pow-pow-pow!

“I guess Beargrease is about all that’s left,” he said. “Is he the one?”

I didn’t nod, or shake my head, or move in any way. It didn’t matter. It was like he could read my mind.

He sighed. “Okay.”

But then he looked down and saw he had one finger left. He’d missed one last guy.

“Kreeger?” He sounded like he was going to choke.

Don’t move, I told myself. Don’t let on.

A little necessary roughness, huh?

I shook my head.

But I think Coach knew. Somehow he must have just known.

There was no denying the disappointment on Coach’s face. His mouth opened, like that mounted fish, as if he were groping for some explanation, some way to set things right. Everyone knew we couldn’t win State without Rom.

He reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. From somewhere, dripping coffee fell on a burner and hissed.

“I’m going to take action on this immediately,” he said, his voice grim. “And in the meantime, if there’s anything you need, let me know.”

His hand squeezed my shoulder.

What would life be like if Coach were my abogee? We could talk, really talk, and do stuff together, and I wouldn’t always feel like I’d failed some mysterious test only Abogee knew the answers to. Lousy of me to think like that, huh?

“And Chan, if—by any chance—you want to come to practice, the team’s waiting for you. But it’s your decision and of course we’ll respect it, whatever it is.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I know Mikko was thinking of going back. He kind of ticked me off.”

Coach shook his head. “Haven’t seen him. But maybe he’ll be back, if he’s anything like his father. Old Rip, whenever he was mad, or sad, or whatever, he would just come and let it all out on the field. Some guys are like that.”

“I guess,” I said. “All the fun’s sort of gone out of it for me.”

“I understand, son. I do. I just want you to know that you’ve still got your place on the team if you decide you want it.”

By the time I got home it was getting dark. I put on my sneakers and sweats and went outside. I had no
idea where I was going, I just ran, let the feel of my body jolting over the tar take over everything.

I was just hitting my stride when I noticed a car was slowing.

Beep!
“Hey, Chan.” It was Rainey. “Want a lift?”

Until that moment I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to see her. I hopped in the car.

“I’ve been missing you,” she said tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure I’d remember who she was.

“I missed you, too.”

“I wish there was something I could do.”

“Don’t do anything. And please, don’t say you’re sorry.”

I slithered over and put a sweaty hand on her knee as she drove. She smelled like flowers—jasmine, maybe.

It was too cold to sit in the car, so I invited her in and we went up to my room.

In the semi-darkness we just sat, sharing body heat. I loved that I didn’t have to talk to Rainey. If I stopped talking to Sujin for two minutes, she’d be all over me, asking What’s wrong, what did I do? Not Rainey. She just grooved in the silences.

When we came down, I was a little surprised to see Abogee sitting in the living room. There was no car in the driveway, so he must have walked home. When he saw us, he rose.

“You should never bring a girl up to your room,”
he said.
“You know better than that.”

Sometimes, just the sight of someone, like the way they happen to look at that particular minute, can set you off. I looked at Abogee and this awful feeling rose up in me, a feeling mixed up from the time he almost hit me, the way he told us we were moving, how he’d made Young feel so bad about wanting to date. Abogee just pulled this reaction out of me, the way pepper pulls a reaction out of your nose.

“Please speak English, Father,” I said. “We have a guest.”

Abogee was a pot right before the boil. He shook. It scared me, thrilled me.
“You heard what I said.”

“Abogee, I don’t care what you say anymore.” Something inside me twisted violently. My nerves hummed like live wires.

“Chan—” Rainey reached for me, but then seemed to think better of it and backed off.

“Why do I have to be left with the disobedient child?”
Abogee said.

“What are you saying?” I yelled. “That it would have been better if
I
had died instead of Young? If
you
hadn’t made us move here, she’d still be alive—alive! It’s all your fault—you and your stupid drug-dealer brother.”

I turned to Rainey. “I think you’d better go.” She nodded.

This was it, I decided. The walls were going to come down, the dams break. Abogee and I would finally have it out.

But it was like I’d taken a pin and deflated Abogee’s spirit.
Pfft!
The fight drained from Abogee completely, and he turned and shuffled upstairs, leaving me alone.

I went back up to my room. There was still a faint trace of Rainey’s perfume in the air, and it comforted me. I shut the door tight.

Later that night O-Ma called up, offering to bring me some dinner. I wasn’t hungry.

I lay in bed, in the pitch-blackness. I saw the car, the yellow subcompact. I saw the two girls in it, giggling and talking. Then the deer stepping out in front of them, the car skidding on the road. I saw the fear on Young’s face the split second before impact, that last second she was alive and feeling. And all she was feeling was pure terror.

Did she scream for someone? I couldn’t help wondering. Did she call for me?

For the first time, I just lay there and cried.

I am on the field. In fact, I have the ball and a game’s going on. I hear cheers and hoots, but I don’t know which end zone I’m supposed to go for. Rom and Jimmi are laughing their beads off.

Everything is in slow motion. I want to yell to the coaches, ask which way to the end zone, but my mouth won’t work. Cheers and wails are coming from all directions, and I realize that this is the important game. The One.

“Chan!” Young is there. She is in a yellow-and-white cheerleader’s uniform. But our colors are red and black. And why in the world is she a cheerleader?

She is waving her pompoms like crazy, yelling, “Go, Chan! Go, Chan!” Suddenly I can see where the end zone is, and I take off toward it. She keeps on smiling and cheering, so I know I’m going the right way.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

My alarm clock is ringing its head off. I pack my soccer cleats in my bag as I head downstairs.