The Off Season (6 page)

It really wasn't fair because I am at least five times better than Brian. Even if he played winter ball I'd probably beat him because I am really good at basketball, and any concerns I might have about, you know, getting too much in his face had been pretty much eliminated by playing full-contact football and also by the fact that Brian's face was where I wanted most in the world to be.

But we played anyway, me shooting with my left hand just to make it fair, and I have to admit that being guarded by a guy you really like who keeps bumping into you on purpose is a lot more fun than being guarded by some stuck-up girl who's trying to get you to foul.

Anyway, I was driving in for a lay-up, Brian all over me, when the turkey guys pulled in, and I finished my lay-up just to show off a little before I went over to say hello. They introduced themselves but I immediately forgot their names, although the guy with the camera said they'd come from Chicago, which is a huge drive and made me pretty impressed.

"So, you want to look around?" I asked, wishing Dad were there.

The non-camera guy shrugged and said sure, and the camera guy took lots of pictures including lots of me but I didn't know how to ask him to stop. I just walked them around the yard and barn, telling them what everything was because I didn't know how much turkey guys know about dairy farming.

"And what's your story?" the non-camera guy asked Brian, who was tagging along.

"He's just a friend," I grinned. "He's QB for this nothing school."

"Really?" the guy asked. He seemed a lot more interested in this than in turkey farming, kind of like that guy in Minneapolis when we picked up the tailgate.

So we ended up talking about the Red Bend–Hawley scrimmage and how I'd trained Brian all summer and how we'd painted the inside of the barn—where we happened to be at that moment, so it came out kind of naturally—and the two guys really seemed to enjoy themselves because, let's face it, it's a pretty good story.

Then Brian had to go, and before he left I gave him a little kiss goodbye, which was the first time we'd ever done something like that in front of anyone, but it's not like turkey farmers are going to mind. Then, remembering my manners finally, I offered the guys some coffee, which really surprised Curtis, who was in the kitchen in his briefs. He disappeared pretty darn quick but the guys didn't seem to mind too much. Dad must have just about talked their ears off on the phone because the non-camera guy had lots of questions about Win and Bill, and whether I was playing linebacker to be like my brother, which is a question I'm getting a little tired of, and what I thought about Win's playing (which was amazing, duh) and Minnesota's chances, and Washington's, all the normal football talk that even turkey farmers can manage.

Finally Dad pulled in and the three of us headed out to meet him.

They shook Dad's hand and introduced themselves again.

"They're the turkey guys," I explained, because they weren't saying that part.

The non-camera guy looked at the camera guy. "Turkey guys?"

"Yeah. From the wild turkey farm."

The two guys started to laugh, and the camera guy said, "Oh, that explains a lot," and the non-camera guy looked kind of embarrassed and said that he'd been called a lot of things but never that, and that actually they were from
People
magazine. "We called a couple days ago and it sounded like it'd be okay to come by this morning. That's what the boy said—"

Dad and I hollered out at the exact same time, "Curtis!"

Which Curtis didn't want to hear so much, seeing as those guys had already seen him in his underwear. He came slinking out, dressed at least, and let on that yeah, he'd talked to the non-camera guy but he thought it was a joke and forgot about it right away. Which amused the non-camera guy to no end, seeing as most of the time people are just about dying to get into
People
and our family couldn't even manage to write the message down.

So they ended up staying for lunch and talking a lot to Dad, who made them sandwiches with this smoked turkey that the wild turkey farmer had sent him that was really amazingly good, and shooting the breeze with him and actually asking a lot of questions about turkey farming. Then Mom showed up and they talked to her. Then the
real
turkey farmers showed up, and the non-camera guy got to talking about doing a story on them while the camera guy made all four of us come outside for a bunch of pictures, Mom trying to suck in her belly. Then the non-camera guy came back and gave us this little talk about how the story might not run depending on what the other stories were that week and how many celebrities were having babies, which
People
readers care about a lot more than girl linebackers from Wisconsin. Which was A-okay with me.

After they left, Mom gave us the same warning all over again about not telling anyone, because a TV crew came once to do a story on Jorgensens' Ice Cream and Randy Jorgensen bragged to everyone in town and they watched the news for a week, and all the TV ended up showing was a little girl with ice cream on her face that could have been anywhere in the world. Randy still gets grief about that, and the very last thing I needed was someone accusing me, again, of playing football just for the attention.

Right then the college football games started so we had to sit down and watch them, and for long stretches I could even forget what just happened. I'd remember whenever they did one of those annoying athlete profiles that don't tell you anything because those things don't even say as much as
People,
but otherwise I'd just root for Bill, who got two good sacks in and a couple seconds of footage of him with his helmet off, showing what a good-looking guy he is even without earrings. And Win started again too.

That night I called Brian, but he was out with some friends so I couldn't tell him about
People,
which was probably for the best since I didn't think the news would make him any happier than it did me. Because I wasn't the only one who said things to those two reporters, and did things in front of them, that I wouldn't be too keen on my friends and neighbors learning about. It's not such a good idea to go around kissing rival linebackers, at least not in high school football. I wouldn't know about the pros.

W
ORD STARTED GETTING AROUND SCHOOL
about Amber and Dale. They weren't doing a whole lot to hide it, what with Dale practically living in Amber's driveway because her real apartment was an hour away. Amber's mom, Lori, was too caught up in her job and her latest boyfriend to notice, but not everyone was, and Amber started getting garbage about it. It wasn't as bad as it could have been because Amber has a reputation for being tough, but she was getting called things in the halls and bumped by accident on purpose, and stuff got written on her locker. She didn't complain about it, not once, but she started cutting school a lot. Which totally sucked for me. Kari Jorgensen, who I'd hung around with a bit over the summer, now had a hot new boyfriend herself who took all her time, and I couldn't hang out with the volleyball players seeing as I'd basically abandoned them to play football, and even though I really liked some of the guys on the football team, it wasn't the same.

Then there was that freshman Paul Zorn. He'd stare at me whenever we were at our lockers, and ask me how I was, or tell me how good I'd played. He kind of reminded me of Curtis although he has it a lot worse than Curtis because he's short and kind of soft, and just looks like a target. So I'd chat with him sometimes because I didn't have anyone else to talk to. Or walk with him, even if I ended up late for class, just to protect him a little bit.

Anyway, one day Amber skipped school again, and so I ended up eating alone in the cafeteria, feeling like every single person was watching me eat my sloppy joes, which are hard to eat in the best of circumstances, and then I got sloppy joe sauce on the health class homework I was doing, which made me even more upset, especially because it's this dumb form on why caffeine is so bad for you that we shouldn't even have to fill out considering our health teacher comes to class every day with a three-quart cup of coffee just so
she
can stay awake. Then on the way to class, feeling just peachy, I saw Paul Zorn get body-slammed by a couple sophomores. Just a few yards in front of me. Paul's backpack fell open, and he started crawling around trying to pick stuff up as the two sophomores stood there laughing, and then right as I got there one of them gave him a shove and said, "Faggot."

I have no recollection of thinking, even for a second. Next thing I knew, I had that kid up against the lockers with his feet a good eighteen inches off the floor and his T-shirt balled up under his chin where I was holding him. One-handed too, which means I was extra mad, because this kid had some meat on him. Donny Donovan, his name was. He'd tried out for football but hadn't even managed a day of practice. He had a little barrel chest and mean little eyes. Only his eyes weren't mean now, they were really wide, and you could hear him breathing because his head had made such a bang when it hit the lockers that everyone in the entire hallway had gone dead quiet.

He looked like he was waiting for me to say something, and everyone in the entire hallway waited for me to say something, and for the eight millionth time I couldn't think of a single thing. I mean, I wanted to say that I hate that word because of everything it means for people like Amber, but I knew if I said this I'd bring even more attention to her and I didn't want to do that. Instead I just stood there glaring at him until Mr. Slutsky showed up out of nowhere and made us both come to his office, and Paul Zorn was left to pick up all his papers.

The meeting was about as much fun as anyone could ever have short of being run over by a tiller. Mom showed up in her elementary school principal clothes looking just furious, hissing that she'd never once had to do this with Win or Bill. Donny Donovan's parents showed up too, both of them, just as short and barrel-chested as he was, so packed into their clothes that it was a wonder the seams didn't pop. They were like human sausages, with sausage fingers and sausage arms and tiny piggy eyes. Mom spent the whole time glaring at me, and the sausage people glared at me too, and Mr. Slutsky gave this long speech that he could probably recite in his sleep about how violence never solves anything and students should find a teacher or him to resolve their conflicts.

Yeah right, I thought.

Then Donny got to explain his side, which was basically that he'd been walking down the hall minding his own business, nothing to do with Paul Zorn, when I attacked him and gave him a huge lump on his head and probably whiplash. On the plus side, no one except his parents seemed to believe him. Then Mr. Slutsky asked me to tell my side, and all I could do was stare at the table, wishing I had a week to come up with an answer.

"Are you going to allow this?" Mr. Sausage Donovan asked. "Football players bullying students?" He said "football players" like it was a disease.

"We do not tolerate bullying in this school," Mr. Slutsky said. "D.J. will be benched following school policy."

"Benched?" I interrupted. "But—"

Mr. Slutsky shot me a look and I shut right up, glad to be sitting out of reach of Mom. He continued: "We do not tolerate bullying in this school, Donald."

"I wasn't bullying!" he whined.

"Your reputation precedes you," said Mr. Slutsky, which sounded pretty tough to me but it went right over the heads of the Sausages. Then he sighed and let us all go.

Out in the corridor Mom came right up to me. "Are you satisfied? Have you learned your lesson?"

"I didn't—it wasn't my fault—"

"Whose fault was it?" she snapped with that Mom logic I hate. "Certainly not Curtis's."

"Curtis? What's he have to do with this?"

Mom looked at me like I was dim. "Sarah? Sarah Zorn?"

"Wait—Paul Zorn is Sarah's brother? Curtis's girlfriend, Sarah?"

"I'll pick you up after practice. You can break this news to your father."

I also got to break the news to Jeff Peterson, who made me tell the whole team even though most of them had already heard. Beaner Halstaad, who's probably my closest friend on the team and who always has something to say, said that Donny Donovan deserved it, but Jeff cut him off with that same old lecture about violence not solving anything, and how we as football-player role models had to control our tempers, and then he made me apologize to the team for letting them down. Which was swell.

Last summer before football started, I'd been nervous about whether the guys on the team would accept me. Well, I hadn't realized how much they had until now, when instead they were all disgusted that a Schwenk had gotten herself benched for our next game, and with our huge Hawley match coming up in two weeks. God, I felt terrible. Plus I couldn't explain to Beaner, not even to Amber, why it had happened, and that made me feel ten times worse.

The only person more upset than me was Paul Zorn. When I got back to my locker finally after getting chewed out by Mom, he was sitting there—cutting class and everything. "I'm so sorry—it's all my fault—I went to tell Mr. Slutsky, I tried—"

"Don't worry about it," I said. The last thing I needed was some freshman making things worse.

"Your brother always talks about you, you're so nice—"

"My brother says I'm nice?"

"Sometimes," Paul managed, which was pretty smooth of him, considering.

"Yeah, well, it's not that big a deal." What was I supposed to do, tell Paul that I didn't even know my brother and his sister were dating? At least him thinking that, and other people too, made me look a little bit better, like I cared about someone besides myself. A couple weeks later a Vikings defender and an Eagles lineman got thrown out of a game for fighting, and everyone said they were fighting because the game was so rough, but I sat there thinking that they could have been fighting about something no one else understood because you just can't ever know what's going on inside someone else's head.