Nine Inches (16 page)

Somehow I manage not to see Megan until
fift
h-period lunch. She’s standing on line in the cafeteria with her best friend, Brianna, both of them nodding frantically, like they’re having a contest to see which of them can agree the hardest. Brianna’s not a cheerleader, so she’s just wearing regular clothes. Megan’s wearing shoulder pads and a Cougars jersey, number 55, which belongs to Bobby Makowski. She must’ve gotten tired of the helmet because she’s taken it o
ff
and placed it on top of the tray she’s pushing down the line toward the steam table.

“Clay,” she says, when she sees me standing there. She’s got black war paint under her eyes and it gives her a
fi
erce look, but I can see how nervous she is. “How are you?”

I can’t take my eyes o
ff
her chest, those two big 5s, bright white against the blue mesh fabric. Last year she wore my jersey, number 51.

“Wow,” I say. “So you’re with Bobby now?”

I guess I’m hoping she’ll deny it, assure me that it’s just a coincidence, that she just grabbed the shirt out of a random pile. But we both know it doesn’t work that way.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a
ft
er exchanging an
Oh, shit
look with Brianna. “I wanted to tell you.”

“
Th
ere’s a lotta guys on the team. It didn’t have to be Bobby.”

“It just happened,” she explains. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“Are you gonna fuck him?” It’s a stupid thing to ask, but I can’t help myself.

She squints at me in disbelief. “Don’t be an asshole, Clay. It’s not like you.”

By now, the whole line’s stopped and everybody’s watching us like we’re a TV show.
Th
ere’s space in front of Megan, but she doesn’t move, not even when Brianna touches her on the shoulder, trying to nudge her forward.

I don’t know what else to do, so I grab Bobby’s helmet o
ff
the tray.
Th
ere are paint smears all over the surface, little smudges of green and red and black, the residue of a season’s worth of combat. My old helmet looked a lot like this at the end of last year.

I spread the earholes and tug it over my head. It’s a little tight around my temples, but otherwise a decent
fi
t. I buckle the chinstrap, staring at her through the grid of Bobby’s facemask. It feels good to wear a helmet a
ft
er all this time, like I’m suddenly myself again. Megan’s shaking her head, very slowly, and I can see that she’s close to tears.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispers.

AFTER THE
clocks change, the cold gets under your clothes. Dead leaves are everywhere, like scraps torn from a huge pile of brown paper bags.

I go to school in the dark and come right home in the a
ft
ernoon. Sometimes it seems like Mrs. Scotto and I are the only two people living on Grapevine Road.

Th
e team’s playing well, leading the division, on the way to their
fi
rst play-o
ff
berth in years. People talk about it all the time in school.

Th
at’s great,
I say.
Good for them.

Megan and Bobby are out in the open now, walking hand in hand down the hall, looking smug and cheerful, so proud of each other. He must’ve pumped a ton of iron over the summer because he’s huge across the chest and shoulders, way bigger than he used to be. I’m not working out and my own muscles are shrinking. It’s like I have a slow leak in the top of my head, like all the air’s going out of me.

I see them kissing in the parking lot one morning. She’s up on her tiptoes, her hand jammed into the back pocket of his jeans.

I’m having trouble in math class again, but I really don’t think it’s because something’s wrong with my brain.

I’m pretty sure I just suck at math.

I play Xbox until my eyes feel like marbles.

I surf a lot of porn, too,
fi
nd my way to stu
ff
I don’t want to see, but can’t take my eyes o
ff
. Some of the girls look so lost, like they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. It’s like watching zombies.

Never again,
I tell myself.

Th
en I wash my hands and start cooking dinner. My mother’s always so pleased when she comes home from work and there’s water boiling on the stove.

Th
ank you, Clay. You’re a really big help.

You’re welcome, Mom
.

It’s a long month.

THEY HOLD
the bon
fi
re pep rally the night before
Th
anksgiving. It’s a famous local tradition, one of the biggest social events of the year. Hundreds of people show up, including lots of college kids home for the holiday.

I leave my house around seven-thirty, walking because it’s impossible to park anywhere near the blaze. It’s a damp raw night, and I’m surprised to see Mrs. Scotto still on the job, dragging one of her
YARD
WASTE
bags from the garage to the curb. It must be pretty heavy because she has to stop every few steps to catch her breath and adjust her grip. I keep my head down, pretending not to notice when she waves.

I don’t want to go to the rally, but I promised my buddies I’d make an appearance.
Th
ey’re already pissed at me for blowing o
ff
the last two games, tired of hearing me blame it on Megan, even though it’s true: I can’t bear to see her shaking her pom-poms, looking so pretty, so totally focused, like she’s doing the one thing she was put on earth to do, biting her knuckles when the team’s down, jumping for joy when they score a touchdown.
Th
e guys don’t say so, but they think I’m being a pussy, wasting my senior year.

Fuck her,
they told me at lunch.
You’re better o
ff
without her.

Forget about Megan.
Th
ere’s tons of cute sophomores.

It’s the bon
fi
re, dude. Whaddaya gonna do? Sit home and whack o
ff
all night?

I TAKE
the long way around to avoid the crowd, entering the park at East Street, cutting through the woods and across the soccer
fi
elds toward the smoke and the noise. I stop at the top of the sledding hill, looking down on the
fi
re, which they build on the in
fi
eld of the so
ft
ball diamond below.

It’s pretty impressive, a ten-foot tower of lumber with a festive mob gathered around, watching the
fl
ames lick their way up from the bottom of the structure, a modest blaze building slowly into an inferno.
Th
ere’s an ambulance and a
fi
re truck parked on the out
fi
eld grass, not far from the marching band.
Th
ey’re not marching, though — too dark, I guess — just standing in place as they play the Gary Glitter song, the whole crowd shouting “Hey!” in unison and punching at the air, just like at a game. I remember what it feels like to be down there by the
fl
ames, the heat and the music and the
fl
ushed faces, people you don’t even know slapping you on the back, telling you to go get ’em, get out there tomorrow and kick some ass.

I can see the team from here.
Th
ey’re gathered in a clump near third base, a lot of big guys in dark jerseys, their numbers clearly visible in the
fi
reglow.
Th
ere’s Rick and Keyshawn and Larry and the rest of them, mingling with cheerleaders and parents and random kids from school. It looks like a good time.

All I have to do is walk down the hill and join the party. I know I’m welcome: the guys have told me so a hundred times. But I can also see Bobby down there — the numbers on his jersey seem a little too bright, almost radioactive — and a dim shape beside him that must be Megan, so I just stay where I am, watching sparks fountain into the sky every time a piece of wood shi
ft
s position.

Around nine Coach Z. picks up a bullhorn and tells the world how proud he is of all his guys, the amazing courage and heart they’ve shown, turning the season around a
ft
er a rocky start, winning seven of their last eight games, earning a well-deserved spot in the playo
ff
s. He says he has nothing but respect for every one of these individuals, nothing but love and admiration. And then he names the whole varsity squad, starting with the sophomores and moving all the way up through the seniors. He speaks solemnly, pausing between each name, giving the crowd a chance to roar its approval. It’s a long, excruciating process. And that whole time I just stand there, waiting in vain to hear my own name rising up through the darkness.

THERE’S A
ten o’clock curfew on game nights, so the players make their exit around nine-thirty, when the blaze is at its peak. It hurts to watch them
fi
le out, everyone applauding as they make their way across the out
fi
eld to the parking lot and board a waiting school bus.
Th
ey’ll be quiet on the way back to the high school, everybody serious and focused, thinking about the job they need to do tomorrow against Woodbury. It’s a good feeling, riding in the dark with your teammates, knowing the whole town’s behind you.

Th
e crowd thins out a
ft
er that, but the band keeps playing and a fair number of people stick around.
Th
e bon
fi
re usually lasts until midnight, when the Fire Department hoses down the embers.
Th
ere’s nothing stopping me from joining the stragglers — it’s just a party now, nothing to be embarrassed about — but instead I turn around and leave the way I came.

I don’t feel like going home, so I just walk for a long time, trying to clear my head, zigzagging through the residential streets on the south side of town, turning this way and that, going nowhere in particular. At least it feels that way, right up to the moment when I
fi
nd myself standing on the corner of Franklin Place, the little dead-end street where the Makowskis live, and it suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been heading here the whole time.

I’m not surprised to see Megan’s mother’s Camry in Bobby’s driveway, right next to Mr. Makowski’s pickup. Megan used to come to my house on game nights, to keep me company a
ft
er curfew. Mostly we just watched TV with my mom, but for some reason I felt especially close to her then, sitting on the couch with our
fi
ngers intertwined. It makes sense that she’d do the same thing for Bobby, but it pisses me o
ff
, too.

I stand across the street, leaning against a tree trunk, looking at the front of Bobby’s house. At least the cheerleaders haven’t decorated it yet.
Th
at’ll happen later, a
ft
er he’s asleep. In the morning, he’ll wake up to toilet-paper streamers on the branches and inspirational messages taped to the door, soaped on the windows of his family’s cars:
WE
LUV
U
BOBBY
MAK
!!!
BEAT
WOODBURY
!!!
GO
#55!!!
I used to get so stoked, stepping outside on Saturday morning, knowing what I’d
fi
nd, but always pleasantly surprised anyway.

It’s ten-thirty, and I’m hoping Megan won’t stick around much longer.
Th
e players are supposed to be in bed by eleven, and with me she always made it a point to leave before then, even when I begged her to stay a little longer, hoping for a little alone time a
ft
er my mom went up to bed.

You need your rest,
she’d tell me.
We can stay up late tomorrow.

I’m relieved when the front door opens at ten forty-
fi
ve, but it’s not Megan who steps out. It’s Mr. Makowski, wearing a Carhartt jacket over his pajama bottoms. He walks across the street with his hands jammed into his pockets. He looks tired and annoyed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks me.

“Nothing,” I tell him.

“Well, you better go home. Don’t make me call the police.”

“I’m not hurting anyone.”

“You’re scaring people. Standing out here like a stalker.”

Th
at’s not fair. I’m not stalking Megan. I don’t want to talk to her, don’t even want her to know I’m here. I just want to see her leave, to know she’s not giving Bobby those few extra minutes she denied me. I’m not sure why it matters, but it does.

He waits, but I don’t move. Mr. Makowski steps closer and slaps me lightly on both cheeks, the way you do when you’re putting on a
ft
ershave.

“Son,” he says, “you better pull yourself together.”

ONE OF
the things I learned last year is that it helps sometimes to project yourself into the future, to allow your mind to turn the present into the past.
Th
at’s what I try to do on the way home from Bobby’s.

A year from now, I tell myself, none of what I’m feeling right now will even matter. I’ll be in college, living in a dorm, surrounded by people from other towns and other states, kids who don’t know Megan and Bobby and don’t give a crap about the Cougars or the playo
ff
s or our big
Th
anksgiving rivalry with Woodbury. I’ll lose some more bulk and grow my hair long; none of my new friends will even know that I used to be a football player, or that I got hurt, or that they’re supposed to feel sorry for me. I’ll just be the laid-back dude from down the hall, the guy everybody likes. Maybe I’ll join the Ultimate Frisbee team, just for fun, get myself in shape. I see myself jumping like a hurdler, snatching the disc out of the air,
fl
icking it way down
fi
eld before my feet even touch the ground.