Tangerine (14 page)

A bunch of guys came over. I recognized a few of them from the carnival. Their leader, a stocky guy with curly hair and real oily skin, said to Theresa, "What's he doing here?"

She said, "This is the one I told you about. The one who wants to play on your soccer team."

The leader eyeballed me and snorted. "You? You think you can play on my team? What do you think this is, Lake Windsor Middle School? You think we gotta take every chump who shows up? You think 'cause your mommy buys you a jockstrap you're automatically on my team?"

I looked at him calmly. I really didn't know if he was putting me on or if he meant what he was saying. He looked like he was about to dump his lunch tray on my head.

Theresa spoke up. "Chill out, Victor. I'm trying to eat."

Victor took the seat directly across from me, in my face. He continued, "Lake Windsor—that team's a joke, man. We're gonna bust you up this year. You got that big Italian kid, right? Thinks he's bad? He's a joke, man. He's nothin'. And the rest of you guys?...That makes you less than nothin'. Less than zero. That's you, Lake Windsor Man. Less than zero. You're a negative integer." He turned to one of the other guys and slapped hands with him.

Victor then turned his attention to his hamburger and took a big bite. I figured he wasn't really serious, he was just messing with me. I decided to take a chance. I said, "Hey, what do you expect? We play in a sinkhole."

Victor shot an angry look at me, but then he started laughing, nearly choking on his burger. The other guys took their cue from him and started laughing, too. "That's right, man. You crawled out of some kind of sinkhole. That's right." He took a drink of soda. "Hey, what's that big kid's name?"

"Gino."

"Right. Gino. Hey, Tino! They got a Gino, and we got a Tino." Victor reached across, high-fived with Theresa's twin brother, and went on. "I heard about your Gino. You ever hear about me? You ever hear of Victor Guzman?"

"Yeah. I heard about you. I heard you scored sixteen goals last year. I heard you were All-County."

Victor took another bite and said, "You heard right."

Everybody was quiet after that, so I said, "I worked out with the team yesterday."

"Fool, you didn't work out with the team! The team wasn't there yesterday."

I looked at Theresa. I decided to play dumb. "Right. Right. Where were you guys?"

Victor snorted. "Tell him where we were, Tino."

Tino answered to nobody in particular, "We were in jail. They put us in the vandalism jail."

My stomach suddenly knotted up. I said, "What? They put you guys in a jail cell?"

Tino looked at me like I had just said the stupidest thing he had ever heard and I was the biggest loser he had ever met.

Another kid at the table said, "Yeah, I heard you guys got busted. What was up with that?"

Tino answered, "Self-defense, man."

Victor laughed through a mouthful of hamburger. He swallowed and said, "Right. Right. Self-defense. Me and Hernando saw the whole thing."

Hernando added, "Self-defense, man. All the way."

Victor continued, "Did you go to the freak show? At the carnival? Did you see that dude with the big scar down his cheek and the big ax in his hand? Ax Man was his name. Me and Hernando are reading all about this guy on the sign. He chopped people up, right?"

Hernando filled in, "He chopped a whole bunch of people up, long time ago."

"Right. So we're reading about him, and Tino comes around the corner real fast and gets scared."

"Scared? No way!" Tino protested.

"So he screams, and jumps up in the air, and karate-kicks this Ax Man dude right in the stomach, right? And Ax Man snaps in half!"

"Right in half, man," said Hernando. "He's laying all over the floor."

"So we start yelling, 'You killed Ax Man! You killed Ax Man! Let's get outta here!' And we all run outta that place!"

Victor, Tino, and Hernando started rollicking with laughter, reliving the moment. My stomach started to knot again. I said, "So how did you get busted?"

Victor stopped laughing. "How did we get busted?" He glared at Tino. "Stupid Tino here."

Tino snapped at him, "Shut up, fool."

"You shut up. He's carrying his soccer ball around all day, showin' off, you know? Like he's got something to show off."

"I told you to shut up."

"Yeah. You told me that. So they call up Betty Bright and they tell her that it was soccer players that trashed the Ax Man. She knows right away who it was, so she nails us."

The conversation soon turned to things that I didn't know about. I concentrated on my lunch, thinking,
Maybe you actually got away with ratting out these guys.
I certainly hoped so.

As soon as I got to practice in the afternoon, I could tell that things were different.

Victor Guzman is the leader out there. Everybody accepts that. He spurs on the offense all the time. He talks trash to the defense all the time. He wants the ball all the time.

Lake Windsor Middle had about thirty kids on its team; Tangerine Middle has fifteen. I make it sixteen. They don't even have enough players for two scrimmage teams. The starting front line plays against the starting defense. The other four kids play behind the front line, feeding them the ball.

I was in the far goal again. I may as well have been in Houston. I never touched the ball until right before the end of practice, when the coach called Shandra over to talk to her. The coach yelled down to my end of the field. "New guy! Paul Fisher! Get up here. Get in goal."

I sprinted up and took my place on the goal line. So far the front line had scored four times. But Shandra had made about fifteen saves, some of them really impressive. Now it was my turn to face the starters. Victor, Maya, and Tino are the main strikers. They play in the middle of the front line. Nita and a kid they call Henry D. play out on the wings.

Victor started in on me right away. "Paul Fisher? Hey, Fisher Man, you think this is trout season here or something? You think you're in some kinda tuna-catchin' tournament here?" Some of the others started laughing. "You're gonna be wearing those glasses on the other side of your head if you think that. This ain't no Lake Windsor Middle School, sucka. You're facing the War Eagles now!"

Nita set the ball up in the corner. She lofted a corner kick into the center to Maya, who controlled it and passed it along the ground to Victor. Victor caught it at full stride and drove a shot high and hard toward the goal. I saw it coming all the way. I sprang off my heels, forward and to the left. The ball stuck in my outstretched hands like they were Velcro. I landed flat on the ground, fully extended, holding on to the ball. A great save.

I looked over to check Betty Bright's reaction. She had her head down, talking earnestly to Shandra. She had missed the whole thing.

Suddenly,
wham!
A foot came slicing in front of my face, driving the ball out of my hands and into the goal. Victor pumped his fist into the air. He leaned over me and yelled, "You taking a nap, Fisher Man? Is this naptime at Lake Windsor Middle School? Too bad. You missed my goal!"

Tino came up behind him, shaking his head, "That's no goal, man. That's bogus."

Victor turned on him. "What are you talking about? That goal counts."

"No chance. That ball was dead."

"Yeah? You gonna be dead you don't shut your mouth."

"You shut your mouth, chump!"

"Hey, come here and shut it for me!"

Tino lunged at Victor. They bounced off each other and squared off in a snarling, karate-kicking scene, right above my head. Hernando tried to get between them and break it up, and Maya and Nita drifted out of the way.

The coach looked up and blew her whistle. She screamed at them, "You two didn't learn a thing, did you? Do you need another three days off? Do you need to miss the opening game of the season?" The combatants stopped fighting and glared at each other. "I see one more punch over there, you two are back on suspension. You hear me?" Victor and Tino continued to glare at each other, but the worst of it seemed to be over. The coach blew her whistle again. "That's enough for today. Everybody get here early tomorrow. I'm giving out the uniforms."

I picked myself up off the ground and followed everybody off the field. When we got to the bus lanes, the old green truck pulled up. Theresa and Dolly got into the front while Tino, Hernando, and Victor piled into the back. All seemed to be forgiven with them. They were already laughing about something. Probably about me.

When I walked out to the front of the building, I saw Maya and Nita waiting for their ride. I nodded as I walked past them. Maya said to me, in a musical voice, "That was an excellent save."

"Oh? Thank you."

"The goal would not have counted. You had the ball in your grasp."

"Uh-huh."

"The whistle would have blown."

"Thank you. I know better than that, though. I shouldn't have been lying there posing for pictures like that. I should have protected the ball."

A blue Mercedes pulled up and the two girls got in. Mom pulled up right behind. She said, "So, are you on the team?"

"Yeah. I think I am."

She jerked her head toward the blue Mercedes. "Are those two girls on it?"

"Yep."

"Really? Girls? Are they the only ones?"

"Nope. There are two more."

Mom seemed genuinely impressed. "How nice. To have girls on your team. That's nice."

As we drove home, I relived everything that happened at lunchtime and at practice. Every word. Every action. I thought to myself,
It's not my team, Mom. Not yet anyway. Not by a long shot. And it's definitely not nice. But it's where I want to be.

I got my uniform today. Joey brought his over after supper.

We went out back, through the patio doors. That was a mistake. It was a bad time to be outside. The muck fire was particularly strong. I could actually see it, and feel it, and smell it swirling over and into our yard. And mixed in with it, I could hear a sound, a predator's sound. It was the sound of Arthur Bauer's Land Cruiser on the other side of the back wall. It was the sound of Arthur and Erik accelerating, braking, and sliding through the mud on the perimeter road. I should have told Joey to come back inside, but I didn't. We laid our uniforms out on the picnic table, side-by-side, so we could compare them.

Joey's uniform is brand-new. It has light blue socks, white shorts, and a light blue jersey. The jersey has a white number 10 on the back and the word
seagulls
written in cursive across the front. Pretty cool.

My uniform has obviously known some previous owners. It has maroon socks and shorts and a gold jersey with a thin maroon stripe on each side. The jersey has a black number 5 on the back and a round black patch over the heart, hand sewn, that shows a ferocious-looking eagle with arrows in its talons.

The smoke was starting to get to us, so we gathered up our stuff to go inside. I hadn't noticed that the predator's roar had stopped. Arthur and Erik had quit their mud running and driven around from the perimeter road to our driveway. I usually notice stuff like that, especially where Erik is concerned, but today I didn't.

Just as Joey and I turned around from the table, Erik and Arthur entered the backyard through the gate. Arthur ignored us and headed toward the patio door.

Erik, carrying all of his football gear, swiped at Arthur with his helmet and said, "Hey, check it out. It's Mohawk Man's brother."

Arthur stopped and stared at Joey. He answered on their cruel wavelength. "I didn't know Mohawk Man had a brother."

"Yeah you did, butthead. The shoes! He was trying to take Mohawk Man's shoes!"

The two of them started to laugh. Erik said, "It's the hair that fooled you. No family resemblance."

Arthur picked up the banter. "No. No resemblance. None at all."

"I wonder if he got his money back for those shoes."

"Yeah. Hey, there was nothin' wrong with those shoes. The kid had some money comin'."

Joey was clearly stunned by this exchange. He had no idea what they were talking about. But I did, and I felt sick with anger.

Erik and Arthur continued on through the patio doors, passing through them into Mom's world, changing their ghoulish routine about Mike Costello into one about the National Honor Society, or the student government, or some other bull for Mom's ears.

Joey turned to me with a pleading look. He said, "What are they talking about? Who's Mohawk Man?"

"Forget about it. They're idiots."

"No. Tell me. You obviously know."

Joey was right. I took a deep breath of the smoky air and explained, "Joey, they're making fun of your brother. They're making fun of Mike when his hair got burned off by the lightning. And they're making fun of you for trying to take his shoes off at the field."

Joey thought for a minute. Then he whispered, "That's what I thought they were doing." He sat down on the picnic-table bench. "I should've punched them out for that. I should've tried, anyway." He looked at me. "That's what Mike would have done. Mike had guts. He stood up to people when he had to." Joey's voice dropped even lower. "He wasn't a coward like me."