The Off Season (10 page)

He turned away, more disgusted than I'd ever seen him. The other guys wouldn't look at me either. Jeff told me to clean my stuff out of the girls' locker room, and by the time I got back from doing that, which I didn't do too quickly you can be sure, they were gone.

As soon as I got outside, I could tell word had spread that D.J. Schwenk had quit football. Which wasn't fair at all because when some pro player is hurt, they never say he's quit the team, they say he's on the injured list and out for the season. I could hear words like "quitter" and "loser" as I walked through the crowd looking for Mom and Dad. Oh, it made me mad. And also want to cry because not one person besides Mom and Dale, and Brian too, seemed to understand how hard my decision had been.

At least Dale was around, and Amber. That night I stayed up late with them, drinking beer and eating ribs one-handed because Dale wanted our opinions on these sauces she was working on although how do you tell the difference between three kinds of perfect, and all in all I was mighty glad to be with my two friends. My two only ones, maybe.

Amber even invited me to sleep over, pointing out that I'd had too many beers to be driving one-handed. Frankly, I'd had too many beers to be driving with three hands even, and when I called Mom, she said it'd be great seeing as Curtis was on a sleepover as well—I guess she wanted a mini-vacation with Dad for once, the only kind of vacation the two of them get.

And here's the thing: Dale went and sacked out in her camper, and left me and Amber in Amber's room all by ourselves, me on that beat-up old air mattress I've been sleeping on since my first sleepover there in fifth grade. Dale said that we needed some girl time, which kind of got me scratching my head because isn't that what she and Amber have all day long? But it meant that Amber and I could just hang out like we used to, before she got a girlfriend and I got a sling, and watch TV on that tiny little TV she has and do a little Bob talk and shoot the breeze. We spent a big chunk of time talking about Dale, how great she is—which Amber really liked to hear, that I agreed with her on that—and about my injury and my decision, which Amber completely supported although I think that mostly has to do with the fact she doesn't like me hanging out with all those boys.

Anyway, we slept finally, and in the morning I woke up pretty early as always, and took off because Amber and Dale were driving to St. Paul for some party Dale's friends were having, and I sure didn't want to be the one stuck in Red Bend waving goodbye.

When I got home, Smut just about wagged her tail off seeing me because oh my God I'd been gone
all night
and I guess she panicked like she always does that I might never come back. Which I was really planning on doing someday, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that. It would just make her all worried in her good-dog way. Not that I
could
tell her, just so you know; I'm not one of those folks who actually think they can talk to animals. But even if I could, I wouldn't want to bum her out. Or me either, for that matter, thinking about leaving her behind.

Mom and Dad were still having breakfast, I guess in celebration of the last of their mini-vacation. "Cheese!" Dad was saying as I walked into the kitchen, sounding so excited that for a moment I thought he'd lost it. "You'd be amazed. This guy in Painters Bluff has a factory right on his farm, he sells it all over the country. You should see his label."

"He's got some more ideas," Mom explained to me in this tone that made me think maybe their mini-vacation hadn't been so fun after all.

"Cheese?" I said.

"
Organic
cheese," Dad corrected me. "Organic homemade cheese. The market's exploding—I just got off the phone with this guy who's printing money, practically, and winning all sorts of awards, and selling to a couple big chains—"

"You hate organic," I said. "You always say how stupid people are to pay for it."

"Not when they're paying him," Mom said, kind of hitting the nail on the head there.

"It tastes better," Dad said defensively. "Remember that turkey? Didn't it taste better than normal turkey? Well, so does this cheese, and it wouldn't take too long to turn the farm around, get through the red tape so we're officially certified, and we could make it right in the milk house, or join a co-op for little farms like us—"

"Maybe," I said, "we could raise turkeys
and
make cheese. And get a little bakery going, and a mayonnaise factory, and build the whole sandwich right here." Which Dad actually paid attention to, until Mom started laughing.

"Tell her about the ginseng," she said.

Dad scowled. "Don't laugh—there's lots of money in it. Fellows drive all the way from Chicago to buy it."

"What's ginseng?" I asked.

"A plant," Dad said vaguely. "I even found this Web site on organic vealers—"

"I'm not raising vealers," Mom said.

"Well, half the calves come out boys. You got to do something with them," Dad pointed out. The most reasonable thing he'd said yet, in my opinion.

"But—" Mom started.

"Hell, at least I'm trying!" Dad shouted, and he stomped outside.

There was a little silence, the awkward ringing kind you get after someone stomps out.

"I liked the turkey idea," I offered. "That's kind of brilliant compared to ginseng."

"At least he's trying," Mom said sharply, which only worked to make me feel worse without doing Dad a bit of good. She stomped out after him, only she was wearing her workout clothes, so maybe the stomping was the beginning of her puffy-breath walking thing.

***

I couldn't believe Dad was talking organic, whatever
that
means. I mean, the turkey did taste better, and I know sure as shooting that our milk tastes better than anything you can buy in a store. I won't even drink the milk at school because it tastes so funny. Probably comes from one of those farms where the cows don't even go outside—they're just kept in the barn to get milked three times a day. A regular milk factory. You mix our yummy Schwenk milk with that factory stuff like the dairy company does and all the Schwenk Farm goodness gets lost. You know, cows aren't the smartest creatures on the planet, but they still need fresh air and sunshine and grass just like the rest of us. Well, we don't need grass but you know what I mean. Plus you have to spend a fortune on grain to feed those factory cows, and on antibiotics too, because it's just as unhealthy for cows to be stuck inside all the time as it is for anyone else. Schwenk Farm doesn't have a fortune to spend on grain, or antibiotics, or fertilizers for the hay and corn we grow—fertilizer beyond what the cows make themselves—or all the herbicides and pesticides and fungicides out there. Actually, now that I thought about it, Dad was right. If organic means not using any chemicals, we're probably closer to getting certified organic than a lot of farms because we've just been too broke to afford most chemicals at all. Which is probably the first time in my entire life that being broke seemed like it could pay off.

On the other hand, what good had not using chemicals done us so far? It's not like people come by our place because Schwenk milk tastes so great, or that we have any way of even telling them how great it tastes. People I know wouldn't pay more for that, not one penny, not for just milk. Maybe city folks would, folks who get fired up about buying wild turkeys that aren't really wild. But it still didn't make sense to me, a bunch of city people who couldn't identify the front end of a cow paying more for milk that came from sunshine and grass instead of chemicals. That's not how people think.

Sure, Dad was trying. But it would end up being another one of his harebrained ideas that never amounted to anything, like that grandfather of his who tried to churn butter with a goat on a treadmill. And the farm would keep losing money, and eventually he'd have to sell to a developer and give up all his cows and farming ways, which would just about destroy him, and me too, I have to say, and that would be end of the Schwenks. All because people don't really care what goes in their mouths as long as it doesn't come out of their wallets. So those were my really cheery thoughts as I cleaned the kitchen all by myself because it seemed Mom was puffy-breathing all the way to Canada.

All of a sudden I caught sight of a blue Cherokee, and Brian came walking in the door and gave me a huge hug, being really tender so as not to hurt my shoulder.

"I heard," he said seriously.

For just a second I thought he was talking about Dad's cheese and that fight we just had. Then I remembered football. "Thanks," I said. "At least we won't have to play each other."

"I'm not the only one in Hawley who's relieved about that," he said, and smiled.

"I bet." It felt so nice having him next to me drinking the last of the coffee as I scrubbed the frying pan with one good hand, moving my other hand a bit out of the sling. At least I could do that now.

"What are you doing tonight?" he asked.

"Nothing. Why?"

"Maybe we could, you know, watch the Washington game at my house."

I spun around to look at him. "You mean I'm actually invited over?"

"Aw, don't say it like that," he laughed.

"You mean now that I quit the team I can actually visit? Jeez, if I'd known that..."

"Come on ... Besides, you didn't
quit.
You'd quit when hell froze over."

Which didn't seem like a possibility now, the freezing part, because just thinking about Brian got the tornado engines going. Although we didn't have a chance to do much because Dad stomped in, grumbling about the tractor and asking if Brian knew anything about repacking bearings. Which, amazingly, he didn't, but Dad dragged him off to help anyway and Brian didn't even look like he minded, and as he walked out the door he gave a smile that sent those tornadoes into overdrive.

Brian hung around for lunch too, Dad grilling him on what he thought of homemade cheese and organic veal. Mom made it back from her walk, all pink and dripping and holding her back, which apparently doesn't like puffing so much. At least she didn't seem mad at me anymore. Sometimes time apart is just the same as an apology. It is in our family, anyway.

After Brian left, I hunkered down over my homework, although it was pretty hard to concentrate, and I don't mean because of the sling. I'd never been inside Brian's house—I'd never even met his parents! Then I started wondering what might happen. I hadn't really been alone with Brian—not counting the barn, which I don't because Dad's there all the time and also the straw is super itchy—since the Mall of America, and while I hadn't Done Anything Stupid, I wasn't sure where exactly I stood on the whole subject. I mean, it's not that I wanted to do anything Really Stupid, but I wouldn't be so against doing something Kind of Stupid—something A Little Silly, maybe. Not that I had any clear ideas, but I couldn't help but wonder. So it was awfully hard to work on algebra, and when I took out my A&P book, I looked through the chapter on reproduction, the pages all grimy from kids before me, and that didn't help much either.

I was so busy with all these extremely overwhelming thoughts that I didn't even hear Mom leave to get Curtis, but I sure heard her return because the Caravan pulled in with a screech of brakes like I'd never heard, and by the time I made it downstairs and Dad raced in, Mom was dragging Curtis into the kitchen like he was four years old or something. She spun him around. "Tell them! Tell them what happened."

Curtis—this probably won't surprise you—didn't say a word. He just glared at the floor.

"He didn't spend the night at Peter's last night. Did you? He spent it at Sarah's." Mom was so mad that spit was practically coming out of her eyes—I know that sounds weird, but trust me.

"Dang, bro," I murmured, grinning in spite of myself.

"Oh, it's funny? That he lied to us, that Sarah lied to her parents—they didn't even know he was in the basement!—that I came by Peter's to pick him up and before Peter can
lie
for him, his mother tells me Curtis wasn't ever there?" She smacked Curtis in the head—really smacked him.

"Curtis?" Dad said in a quiet voice. "You want to explain this?"

"Explain! He doesn't need to explain it." Mom's face was deep red, like that time she got so mad about us not clearing the table. She jabbed her finger at Curtis. "You were supposed to be the easy one! You are not supposed to be pulling this garbage! Sneaking around, lying to us, cutting practice, fooling around with girls—you're in eighth grade!"

"Mom, come on—"

Mom spun on me. "You! You think I don't know about you and Brian? You can't keep your hands off him! You're going to end up pregnant, I just know it."

I couldn't believe Mom was talking like this—about
me!
In front of Curtis!

"I have been taking care of this family for twenty-five years and I am sick of it! You hear me? Sick! One of these days I am going to take my suitcase and my paycheck and I am going to
leave!
" She stomped into the living room and tossed her purse on the coffee table, it sounded like, from the crash of change going everywhere. "Goddammit!" she cursed, which she never does, and then a second later she screamed so loud that the house shook right down to its foundation.

M
OM WAS BENT
over the coffee table, frozen in the middle of picking up her purse. "Oh, God," she gasped. "Don't touch me." She was panting in pain, not moving one single tiny muscle.

We'd all raced in, of course, and now we stood there trying to figure out what to do, because I at least was thinking she couldn't stay like that, not forever, and Curtis looked so ready to die of guilt that I had to pat him a little. Dad was almost green. Cows, sure, he can stick his arm up a cow's butt to pull out a calf, and wipe them both off with his own T-shirt and not blink an eye, but when it comes to human sickness, especially in his own family, he's no good at all.

"Mom," I said loud and slowly, though she was standing right there, "tell us what you want."

"My back ... I'm out for the count."