Split Decision (4 page)

But the science hall was truly a smoke-free zone today. Jessica made a feeble attempt to hug Chop, then pivoted and marched away, her hands covering her face.

Cody, who had paused when he got within ten yards of the now ex-couple, headed for his friend. He saw Chop face a locker and draw back his fist.

Before the “Chop, noooooo!” could escape his mouth, Pork Chop slammed his hand, hammer-style, into one of the powder blue lockers.

Cody hurried to his friend’s side. Chop stood sullen, tentatively opening and closing his right fist.

“Did you break it?” Cody asked.

“Ha,” Chop answered humorlessly. “You mean my fist or the locker?”

“I don’t care about the locker, but you’re not gonna be any good this spring with a busted-up hand.”

“I hit it with the meaty part of the hand—like a hammer— not my knuckles; I’m not stupid, you know!”

Cody sighed. “Yeah, Chop, I’m really glad you picked the
smart
way to bash your fist into a metal locker.”

Chop stopped flexing his hand. “Look, Code, if you just came over to pile on after Jessica dumped me, you can just—”

“She really broke up with you in public, in the hallway—just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now, dawg. I wanna go to conditioning, lift every weight in the whole stinkin’ weight room. And maybe I’ll toss a forty-five-pound plate right through the window of Jessica’s car.”

“Jessica doesn’t have a car, Chop.”

“Well, her mama’s car then.”

“Chop, listen to yourself. We really need to talk. After conditioning this afternoon, okay? I’ll buy you a shake at Dairy Delight.”

Pork Chop appeared to be considering the offer. At last, he nodded once. “Okay, the Double D it is. I’ll drive you over.”

Cody frowned. “But Chop, you have just a learner’s permit. I don’t think we should—”

“Arrrgh!” Pork Chop bellowed. “Dawg, you are draining the life outta me.”

“Okay, Okay,” Cody said holding up his right palm, like a traffic cop. “I guess it’ll be all right. I’ll see you after workouts.”

Cody sat across from Pork Chop at the Dairy Delight’s rearmost booth. He wondered how many minutes had passed since he had asked his friend what led to the breakup.

“You know how it is,” Chop said, finally breaking the uneasy silence. “Everybody wants a piece of the Chop. But only for a while. Jessica’s just like all the rest of ’em. I bet she can’t wait till all her friends are gathered around her, firing questions at her—‘What was it like, Jess, dating a
black
dude? Was he always grabbing at you and stuff? What did your parents think? Were they scared? Was it weird—having people stare at the two of you at the movies and stuff?’”

Cody narrowed his eyes. He felt a strange tightness in his stomach. “You really think that’s how it will be?” he asked.

Chop shook his head dismissively. “I
know
.”

“I’m sorry, man. Really. That stinks.”

“Whatever. At least I give ’em something to talk about. You know, Jessica will still be going on about this when she’s in college. She’ll be all … ‘Yeah, I dated a black guy once …’—and her sorority sisters will be surrounding her like she’s delivering the Sermon on the Mount or something.”

Cody noticed that his dinner was now about halfway up his throat. He swallowed hard. “I really am sorry, Chop. I hope you know—”

Chop held out both arms, as if he were signaling a pass-interference penalty. “You don’t have to say anything, little brother. I know what’s in your heart. It’s only the people who are hiding something, who aren’t keeping it real, that have to try to explain themselves. I mean … have you ever described me as your ‘black friend’?”

Cody shook his head slowly. “Only as my best friend.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about. We’re cool. It’s the others that suck the life outta me. The ones who say, ‘I’m not racist; I have seven African American friends.’” He snorted for emphasis. “If you’re into counting how many bruthas you have as friends, you’re racist like nobody’s business!”

Cody sighed. To him, it sounded like an old person’s sigh. Like Grandma Martin, whenever she talked about Grandpa Martin passing away, back in 1999. “I’m sorry it’s still out there, Chop,” he said. “The racism. The ignorance.”

Chop was smiling.

“I’m serious about this. It really bugs me. What— you don’t believe me?”

Chop’s smile shrunk only slightly. “Dawg, I’m
totally
feelin’ you. The maddest I’ve ever seen you get was back in fifth grade. Remember, we were walking to your house when that punk, Eric Hoover, yelled at me through his screen door. He dropped the N-bomb on me.”

Cody felt his heart rev as he recalled the incident. “Hey, Porter, you know what you are?” Hoover had yelled from behind the relative safety of his door. Then he had said it. The word. Cody had looked at his friend, expecting to see his wide, brown eyes burning with hatred. But he saw only pain. For a moment, Cody thought Chop might even cry. Chop’s head had drooped, as if he didn’t have the strength to hold it erect anymore.

“Dawg,” Chop said, tugging Cody back to the present, “you were up on the Hoover doorstep in a flash! And I thought you were gonna pull that screen door clean off its hinges. Eric must’ve thought that too, ’cuz he slammed the big wooden door in a big hurry. You know, that’s the only time I’ve ever heard you—as my pops would put it—‘say swears.’ You were ready to get medieval on Mr. Hoover.”

“I’m not proud of what I said,” Cody said, but he could sense the pride in his voice as he spoke. “That kind of thing just sets me off. Especially when it’s directed at my best friend.”

“Well, you can try to bust down every door in town, but it’s always gonna be there, you know?”

“I wish you were wrong about that, Chop. But I’m afraid it’s true. Even people at church say stuff sometimes.”

Pork Chop arched his eyebrows. “Like?”

“Like, ‘Your friend Deke Porter seems quite nice. He’s not like some of
them
.’”

“For real? Somebody at your church said that?”

“Yeah, sad but true. Chop, I really am sorry. I’m sorry for every time that someone’s gone racist on you. I’m sorry for the way you’ve been treated. I pray all the time that things will change. That people’s hearts will change. That’s the only way things will ever get better. All the laws and debates and programs in the world can’t really change things. It has to come from the inside, you know? It’s gotta start in people’s hearts.”

Pork Chop chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I mean, you can’t go bustin’ down every door in town and beating tolerance into people, can you, dawg?”

Cody forced a laugh. “What makes you think I was going to put a beat-down on Hoover?”

“Don’t front, little brother. You were bangin’ and yankin’ on that screen door so hard! Besides, I know what happens when you get that certain look in your eye. I saw it in the football huddles, every time we called a jailbreak blitz and you knew you were gonna have a crack at the QB. I bet you had that look when you clocked Andrew Neale last year, didn’t you?”

“Okay, Chop, that was wrong too. I’ve told you that a million times.”

“Not in my book.”

“Well, you’re reading the wrong book then.”

“Whatever,” Chop said, slumping in his side of the booth. “At least one of us still has a girlfriend.”

Cody tried to keep his voice from cracking—or going falsetto—as he spoke. “Chop, Robyn Hart is
not
my girlfriend! Do I need to put it out there on the signboard in front of the school or something?”

Chop grinned. “If you say so. But you did go to the movies with her last weekend.”

“That doesn’t mean anything! I was just going with Dad and Beth, and Beth suggested I invite Robyn. Just as a friend, that’s all.”

“If you say so,” Chop repeated.

Cody balled up his napkin and bounced it off Chop’s forehead. “You kill me sometimes. Can you give me a ride home now?”

Chop glanced at Cody’s half-eaten bratwurst. “But you haven’t finished your dog, dawg.”

“I’m full.”

“Yeah,” Chop said, sliding out of the booth, “if you claim you don’t have it bad for Ms. Hart, you’re fulla something.”

Cody finished his fourth bench press rep of 130 pounds with a hearty grunt. He sat up on the bench and listened. From the low roar of the cheers, he figured that the Grant High varsity hoops squad was continuing its dismantling of Holy Family in the regular-season finale. He glanced at his watch, which read 8:30.
Better hit the showers now if I want to clear out of the locker room before the team gets there
, he thought. He smiled as he dabbed his sweaty forehead with a towel. The JV team had put a serious beat-down on the Saints, 80 to 24. Chop had scored twenty-four points and amassed a truckload of rebounds: twenty-two, according to the official stats, twenty-four, if you believed Pork Chop.

At one point in the game, Holy Family’s center tried to grab the ball away from Chop, and the Grant big man twisted away with such force that he spun his opponent into a group of Saints’ cheerleaders who were sitting behind the south backboard. “A little present from me to you,” Chop said to the cheerleaders, adding, with a sly wink, “Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.”

Chop was bummed that he hadn’t been asked to suit up for the varsity game, but Cody sensed that his friend would make the postseason tournament squad. The coaches probably wanted to give JV cocaptain Matt Parker, a rangy but uncoordinated six feet four inch sophomore, one last look, but from what Cody had seen, Parker had failed his audition.

After a long, steamy shower, Cody lumbered out of the locker room, muscles loose with fatigue. He walked through a small alcove near the gymnasium’s south end and pushed open the door.

He stood a moment, letting the cool February-evening air caress him.

“Hey, Martin,” a voice called to him from the darkness of the parking lot.

“Phelps?” he said, squinting. “That you?”

With near-silent strides, Drew Phelps bounded up from Cody’s right. “Dude,” Cody said, “where did you come from? You’re like a ghost or something.”

Drew stood before him, chest heaving from exertion.

“I can’t believe you’re out running in the dark,” Cody said. “You could step in a pothole—or run into a parked car.”

Drew spit elegantly through his front teeth. “Just doing some laps around the parking lot. It’s lit pretty well—in most places anyway. I watched the game longer than you did, but I got bored. You know, they should have a mercy rule or something. Granger was tearing it up. He had thirty-four at the end of the third quarter, but he got pulled out of the game. I bet he’s ticked. He coulda gotten fifty points if he’d stayed in.”

Cody nodded. “Yeah, but they were right to yank him. Why risk him turning an ankle or something right before the play-offs? And, I know what you’re sayin’ about a boring game! It’s hard enough as it is, being a spectator and not part of the action. Besides, I don’t have the stomach for that kinda carnage. And on top of all that, my body was achin’ for a workout, know what I mean?”

Drew laughed. “You’re asking
me
that?”

Cody studied his friend. He had been completely gassed only moments ago, but now he was breathing as easily as if he’d spent the evening lounging on the couch and watching ESPN. He laughed sheepishly. “Sorry, Phelps. I know you’re a workout machine. You should have a pretty good season. You tore it up in cross-country. Number-one runner as a freshman. You’re a hoss.”

Drew shrugged. “Well, Gerber was hurt, or I would probably have been number-two guy.”

“He’s healthy now, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah,” Drew said with a laugh. “Stress fracture must be history now—because I’ve seen him tearing up High School Hill like he’s late for lunch. He can fly.”

“Well, so can you.”

“I don’t know, Cody. I’m honestly not sure I can hang with Gerber. Not yet anyway.”

“It will be interesting to see you two go head-to-head.”

Drew shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess so. He has more God-given talent than I do, but if it comes down to who’s willing to endure the most pain, I like my chances.”

With that, Drew interlaced his fingers and stretched them slowly above his head. Drew Phelps was catlike in the way he stretched, Cody noted. Always smooth, purposeful, and slow, never jerking or bouncing, the way most of the guys in Cody’s frosh PE class went about it.