Текст книги "Winger"
Автор книги: Andrew Smith
Соавторы: Andrew Smith
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
COACH MCAULIFFE RODE WITH KEVIN to the hospital in an ambulance.
The boy who pulled the knife was taken, handcuffed, in another.
Kevin had been stabbed in the shoulder when he tried to take down the guy with the knife. He wasn’t badly cut, and Coach assured us he was going to be okay. Not so good for the guy who stabbed him, though, because Joey broke that boy’s arm and jaw when he slammed him into the pavement. I honestly think that kid might have died if there haven’t been so many grown-ups around.
By the time the cops had arrested the four boys and gotten us all to write out our statements, it was almost seven o’clock and a cold rain was falling. Coach called from the hospital and told the bus driver to take us back to Pine Mountain.
It was a quiet and dark ride home.
No singing.
I don’t think any of us could stop thinking about Kevin and why something like this happened to someone as easygoing as him. It hurt us all because Kevin could accept anyone and anything, which is why, we all knew, he didn’t mind rooming with Joey—something that would be social death to most guys.
But Kevin was just Kevin.
I hoped it didn’t ruin him.
JP was still upset about the penalty he’d given up. Every fullback I’d ever known was like that; they had the toughest job on the team, and when they made mistakes, it was usually costly, so they tended not to let go of things very easily. That was probably the biggest reason why I believed our fight was far from over—the fullback psychology. But I knew I’d have my opportunity over the weekend to ruin his chances with Annie once and for all.
Seanie sat beside JP, but JP wasn’t talking. He just stared out the window, brooding, until he fell to sleep.
I sat stretched out in a bench seat by myself. I looked back the length of the bus and saw that Joey was alone too. So I got up and stumbled down the aisle to sit with him. Joey put his arm across the back of the seat in front of him and lay his head down on it. He had to be hurting about Kevin, but who wasn’t? It wasn’t Joey’s fault.
“Hey,” I said.
Joey didn’t answer.
I never saw anyone on the team cry before, but just then I thought Joey might have been. And I felt really awkward, but I put my arm around Joey’s shoulders. And then I thought how stupid I was for feeling like that because I wouldn’t feel weird about putting an arm around Seanie or Kevin or any other guy friend of mine who was hurting.
Seanie turned around from where he was sitting up near the front of the bus, and he looked at me and mouthed “homo,” then smiled. That was just Seanie being Seanie. So I flipped him off.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Joe,” I said. “You want to talk or something?”
Then I patted his head and put my hand down so I could push myself up to stand.
“Oh, and hey, I never did say thanks for that pass, Joe. So, thanks. Oh, and I’m breaking up with Megan tomorrow. I swear. As soon as we make out one more time, that’s it. Well, maybe twice more. Okay, three more times. But that is it.”
I laughed. Joey looked at me.
He looked pissed.
“I’m just kidding, Joey.”
I stood up and looked out the window.
“How stupid was that, anyway, trying to jump a guy in front of his whole rugby team?” I said.
Joey didn’t say anything.
“Okay. I’ll go now. I guess you don’t want to talk. Sorry, I just thought this fucking ride was getting boring.”
“Since when do you cuss?” Joey said.
“I cussed when Seanie stepped on my balls yesterday.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“In that case, I take back what I just said about the bus ride, just to keep my record clean.”
“Sit down,” Joey said.
“Okay.” I sat next to Joey.
“And, yeah, it was a pretty stupid thing to do,” Joey said.
“The one guy said he was your cousin. That’s why I pointed you out. I’m really sorry, Joe.”
“He isn’t my cousin. And it wasn’t your fault.”
“At least Kevin’s going to be okay,” I said. “He might have saved your life.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what it was about, Joey?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, you know I totally trust you, Joey. I know you can keep a secret for me. So if you want to tell me anything about it, it’s okay, and if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand too.”
Joey took a deep breath. He glanced around. The bus was dead. Nearly everyone was asleep.
He said, “The kid with the knife. His name’s Mike. His brother and I used to see each other. When his folks found out, they flipped. They sent him away to a hospital for crazy kids.”
“Oh.”
Joey said, “It fucked him up worse than anything. Mike told me he was going to come after me one day. I never believed him.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Joey cleared his throat. “I never tell anyone this shit, Ryan Dean.”
“I won’t say anything, Joe.”
“I know.”
“Did you tell the cops?” I asked.
Joey nodded his head. “I wrote it all down, Ryan Dean.”
“Oh. Okay.” I drummed my fingers against my leg. That Band-Aid, which had become a symbol of my life, was really starting to bug me. “Hey, Joey? Can I tell you about how stupid my mom is?”
He looked at me. In the dark, I could see he looked really serious and tired, but his eyes were kind of smiling.
“Sure.”
Then I told him the whole thing about the phone call and the condoms and the “how to have sex the first time” pamphlet, and Joey actually laughed out loud.
“Oh, your mom just cares about you, Ryan Dean, and sometimes parents don’t really understand the best way to show it. But that is fucking funny.”
“I swear to God, Joe. My life is a nightmare.”
“I don’t think so. Not compared with most guys’.”
“And I haven’t even talked to you since the other night, but thanks for getting in Chas’s face too.”
“Did you actually punch him?” Joey asked.
“As hard as I could. And I am pretty sure he would have killed me if you didn’t stop him.”
“Damn.”
“Hey, Joey? What would you do if, let’s say hypothetically, you had to sleep in a bunk bed over Betch and you had a giant Gatorade bottle filled with your own, foamy, day-old piss just sitting there getting cold in your bed?”
And Joey laughed again, like he didn’t believe I was telling him the truth.
On that bus ride home, I believe Joey Cosentino and I became best friends.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
BY THE TIME WE GOT back to O-Hall, it was almost midnight.
Joey and I followed behind Chas, up the stairwell and down the hall. I hoped he’d run into Mrs. Singer, but, when I thought about it, it seemed like I was the only boy in the whole building who’d ever had any run-ins with her.
Maybe she didn’t even really exist.
I decided that sometime before Halloween, I’d have to design a Ryan Dean West is-the-permafrost-eye-poison-known-as-the-unhot-Mrs.-Singer-actually-of-this-universe? experiment, fully controlling, of course, for all unexpected variables.
We checked in with Farrow and said good night to Joey, and I envied him for having a room to himself, even under the circumstances. Then I went to the bathroom-slash-execution-chamber to pee, and Chas headed off to our room alone.
When I got to the room, Chas was already in his bed, but the lights were on.
“What’s in the package?” Chas said.
I groaned.
A white FedEx mailer was sitting on my bunk.
I am such a loser.
“Some porn and a box of rubbers,” I said. “From my mom.”
“Whatever. You’re a fucking dick, Winger.” And Chas rolled over and covered his head, mumbling something about kicking my ass one day.
Confronting Chas Becker with the truth was the surest way to get him to think I was lying.
I turned off the lights and climbed up onto my bunk. I stuffed the package down between the wall and my mattress, right next to the Ryan Dean West Emergency Gatorade Bottle Nighttime Urinal repository full of pee.
I thought, pretty soon I’m going to run out of sleeping space.
I slipped out of my clothes and listened to the rain until I fell asleep.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
I SAW ANNIE AT BREAKFAST in the morning.
Everything seemed to click back into place and get better on the spot. The whole school was buzzing with the rumors of the “Rugby Riot,” and I heard all kinds of bullshit stories from people who weren’t even there, about Kevin Cantrell almost dying, and how “the gay kid” started a fight.
But Mr. Farrow had already told us before we left for school that Kevin was fine and would be back in O-Hall on Monday, so I just shut up when I heard the ridiculous versions circulating, except I did push one boy and call him an asswipe for saying Joey started the fight.
I sat down across from Annie. We held hands on top of the table. Isabel, the constant, fuzzy-lipped-flying-monkey companion, sat beside her. Seanie, Joey, and JP were there too.
JP noticed we were holding hands, gave me a dirty look, and then turned his face away.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you feeling good today?”
“I was back at school yesterday,” Annie said.
“I scored a try for you, like I said I would.”
“I heard all about everything from Sean,” she said. “Are you ready for today?”
“Oh my God, Annie. I’ve been ready for a week.” I fired a look at JP. He wasn’t watching, but I knew he was listening.
“Let’s meet at the front of the office at the start of lunch,” Joey said.
Kids who flew home usually rode to the airport together, since seniors were allowed to leave their cars at PM. I didn’t even find out until after the arrangements had been made that Joey would be driving Chas Becker’s SUV and taking me, Annie, Chas, and Megan to the airport with him.
Chas Becker’s driver’s license had been suspended. Go figure.
Joey was going home to the Bay Area, Megan lived in Los Angeles, and Chas, I assumed, would be going with her, but I didn’t care and wasn’t going to ask him. I just wanted to get out of there, even though I dreaded the awkwardness of the long drive to the airport and sitting in the same car with Annie and Megan. But I did come up with a couple perverted fantasies involving getting stuck in a snowdrift and sending Chas and Joey out into the cold to search for help. Unfortunately, the first snow hadn’t fallen yet.
“Did Isabel give you my note?” I asked.
“Nice Space Needle cartoon,” Annie said. “But you are a total liar about not knowing what was going on the other night, Ryan Dean West, and you know it.”
I stared right into her eyes, giving her my most innocent look. I even leaned forward over the table, just like she did to me that night outside O-Hall when Madam-Frosty Mrs. Singer caught us as we were about to kiss.
But, God! I really wanted to kiss her so bad.
“Oh, really?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Two times balls equals they do the thinking. Oh, which reminds me . . . How’s the SpongeBob Band-Aid?”
Then Isabel laughed.
“Score,” I said. “Made you talk about my balls. And, anyway, Seanie’s making that up. It’s a Princess Barbie Band-Aid.”
Then I gave Seanie a dirty look and nonchalantly scratched the bridge of my nose with my middle finger. I stood up. It was time to go to Conditioning.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ANNIE AND I PASSED NOTES to each other all during Mr. Wellins’s American Literature-slash-Sex-Ed class; and I could tell JP was getting pretty ticked about it. Oh, well, I thought, I’ve got all weekend, buddy, and by the time we get back to Pine Mountain she won’t even know you exist.
Less than forty-five more minutes of sex talk about how gay Henry David Thoreau was and we’re out of here.
Yeah, but then, with you, it’s going to beFriday to Sunday of nonstop sex talk.
We don’t have to just talk (wink).
You are so perverted. Try to be nice around my parents.
And your gay dog. Just remember, I am here to help you through this Intense-Need-to-Kiss-Ryan-Dean obsession you have.
Like I said: LIAR. And you know it.
Want me to draw you a picture?
I dunno. Is it perverted?
You want perverted? I can do.
Ugh! Get me an airsick bag. Freak!
Here you go. Love, Ryan Dean West (fifteen more minutes!!!).
In your dreams, maybe, West!!! Love, AA
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I KNEW THE DRIVE TO the airport would be awkward. Chas went out of his way to make it even worse than it had to be.
After we’d loaded our suitcases in the back of his SUV, Chas informed me that I would ride shotgun—front passenger seat. And, as Chas explained, that meant the gay guys could sit up front so Chas could be in the backseat with what he called “the two hotties.”
Chas Becker was such a tool.
Not that I wouldn’t have called them that, much less given just about anything to sit between them. I even tried to argue that it would be more comfortable for Annie and Megan if I did, because I was smaller than Chas, but Chas just looked at Megan one time, then gave me a look like he was about to punch me and said, “Shut the fuck up, Winger.”
And, when we were on the road, I turned back and saw that Chas was sitting in the middle with his arms stretched over the seat backs, pretending he was holding on to both girls, just looking at me like he was the king of the world or something, which, for whatever reason, made me think about that bottle of piss I still hadn’t gotten rid of.
“What are your plans for the weekend, Ryan Dean?” Joey asked, paying attention to the road but flickering his eyes to the mirror once in a while to watch Chas and the girls. Normally, they would have been in Kevin’s car, which was bigger than Chas’s SUV; Joey’s car was out of the question, since it only carried two people.
“Nothing boring,” I said. “No TV watching. Me and Annie are going to do some running on the beach, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe go fishing if it’s not too rainy.”
“Sounds thrilling,” Chas said. “When are you two going to actually start fooling around? Or are Annie’s parents going to play watchdog all weekend?”
“Shut up, Chas,” I said. “Annie’s not like that.”
I looked at Annie, and she smiled at me. And then I saw Chas scoot himself closer to her.
“I bet she could be like that,” he said.
“Maybe I should sit up front,” Annie said.
Then Megan tried to change the subject but chose the worst imaginable direction to steer the conversation: “I bet Ryan Dean’s a real good kisser, Annie. Is he?”
As soon as she said it, all kinds of things happened at once:
1. I felt my balls actually retract up inside my body cavity. I don’t know if I turned white or red, but I definitely felt something turning.
2. Megan got this testy and challenging look on her face—definitely the very, very bad policewoman look.
3. Joey coughed like he was choking on something, then fired me the get-your-shit-together-Ryan-Dean look.
4. Chas took his arms away from both girls and folded his hands on his lap, pouting, with a look on his face that said he wanted to snap my skinny-bitch-ass neck. He had to know what was going on with me and Megan. I was convinced.
5. And Annie said, “Oh, yeah. He’s a great kisser. And he has puppy breath.”
Then Chas said, “Do you guys want to pull over and play Spin the Bottle, or should we just get to the airport in time to catch our flights?”
Megan straightened up and winked at me. I didn’t even want to look at Annie to see if she’d caught it. This could easily ruin what I was convinced would be the best weekend of my life.
I cleared my throat and said, “Annie’s just messing around. We’ve never kissed. Not even close.” And I looked directly at her and said, “Even though I’ve asked her to hundreds of times.”
So I let her off the hook. For now.
I knew she’d think about that. I knew Annie. She wasn’t going to let a statement like that go unresponded to all weekend long, so I turned back around, faced the road, and tried to will my nuts back down from behind my belly button, smiling, confident that I’d get Annie Altman to cave in to her weakness before too long.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
GOD! WAS I GLAD TO see our group split up once we got to the airport.
We all agreed on a meeting time and place in the terminal after our return flights Sunday evening, then we headed off to our gates.
Annie and I checked our bags and took off our shoes to pass through the security line. And, of course, as these things happen to losers such as myself, when I was walking through the metal detector, an alarm sounded because I’d left my belt on. And just when the Transportation Security officer was waving me to stop, my Band-Aid conveniently came unglued after its two-day vacation on my balls. It fell out the bottom of my dorky, too-short school pants.
This, of course, made the guard think that I was some kind of black-tar-heroin-cakes-or-whatever-the-fuck-you-call-them-Band-Aided-to-my-ballsack-smuggler, and he and another very unhappy-looking man in a white shirt escorted me behind a thin screen, the kind you’d see in a run-down clinic.
That was where they told me to strip down to my underwear.
Nice.
Annie laughed at me.
Well, I think she was laughing at me. I couldn’t tell, because I couldn’t see her since I was standing in my boxers behind a goddamned hospital-cloth screen while one of the TSA guys turned my socks inside out and shook them.
At the same time, the other agent actually grabbed my now Band-Aid-free balls (and it was probably not in good judgment for me to ask him if he wanted me to turn my head and cough, because he just kind of nodded and said something about me being a “smart ass,” and then he pulled out the waistband on my underwear and gave my actual-not-so-smart-skinny-white-ass a glimpse of airport-terminal fluorescent light).
Annie was doing her best, I am sure, to pretend she didn’t know heroin-ballsack-boy.
Yeah.
I’m a loser.
Not just a loser, a loser who was still standing behind a screen, barefoot and in his boxers, when he heard the final boarding announcement for his flight to Seattle. The TSA guy just placed my boarding pass on top of my thoroughly ransacked and inside-out school clothes and said, “Sorry, Mr. West. You’re free to go.”
I quickly pulled on my now-beltless pants and slid into my shirt. I grabbed my shoes and the rest of my clothes and boarding pass in a bundle under one arm and walked out from behind the screen.
Annie stood there, laughing, her eyes all wet.
“Why do these things always happen to you?” she asked.
“Because I’m a fucking loser,” I answered.
Yeah, well . . . I didn’t say “fucking,” of course, because you know I never cuss, especially not in front of Annie, but to say that I wanted to say “fucking” is a fucking understatement.
“Here,” she said, “let me help you,” and she grabbed my shoes and belt as I hopped along to the gate, my unbuttoned and untucked shirt fluttering behind me as I tried to pull on one sock and my pants slipped down toward my knees. I dropped my tie and had to stop to pick it up.
I gave up.
I followed Annie to the boarding gate half-undressed and barefoot, with one hand holding up the waist of my pants.
And the attendant at the gate, who, I will say, was pretty damn hot in a paramilitary-Andrews-Sisters kind of way, raised her very disciplined-looking eyebrow as I pinched my boarding pass to her with the same hand I was using to try and keep my pants up.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, dropping my tie and one of my inside-out socks at her feet, “I plan on being completely naked by the time we get to our seats.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
“I REALLY DO WANT TO hold hands on takeoff,” Annie said.
I slipped my hand into hers.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Well, considering I get naked before takeoff, I’d say that exactly nine months from the moment we fly over the Columbia River, you’ll probably be giving birth.”
She laughed. “Pervert.”
I buttoned my shirt.
I couldn’t help myself now:
RYAN DEAN WEST 2: So . . . loser, did you pack the condoms?
RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Don’t be ridiculous. Annie is not like that.
RYAN DEAN WEST 2: I bet five out of five Buffalo wings on the Ryan Dean West Spice Matrix Megan Renshaw is.
RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Hmmm . . . I haven’t been keeping up with that particular scale, but that stewardess up the aisle has got to be a four-and-a-half . . . I wonder if I could swing a trip to LA next weekend . . . . Just a thought.
JOEY COSENTINO: Goddamnit, Ryan Dean. I am going to stop sticking up for you if you don’t grow the fuck up. You are finally getting to go somewhere with the girl of your dreams, and you can’t stop thinking about every other female on the planet.
RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I’m sorry, Joey. Hey, how could you be on this plane?
JOEY COSENTINO: I’m not. I’m the part of your subconscious that actually (a) knows the right thing to do and (b) is not perverted.
RYAN DEAN WEST 2: You mean there is a part of my brain that doesn’t think about sex? You’re making that up!
RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Go away, Joe. The stewardess is about to come around to check if my seat belt is snug enough.
I actually managed to get dressed, shirt tucked, necktie knotted, one sock still inside out but at least in my shoes, before the plane was on the runway, and all this despite the fact that I was wedged into a middle seat between Annie and a drunk-bald-fat guy who fell asleep, sitting on my seat belt buckle, with his head on my shoulder.
We were still holding hands when the plane began its descent into Seattle. Me and Annie . . . not me and the drunk guy.
“This is going to be so great,” Annie said.
“What’s the best thing you’ve ever done in your life?” I asked.
“I don’t know. What about you?”
“Top three,” I said—my shoulder leaned against hers, and it felt so good—“were those last two times you and I were alone at Stonehenge, and being here right now, holding your hand.”
I looked right at her.
“You’re trying to see if you can make me do it, aren’t you, West?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
“Sure.” Then she said, “It is not going to happen.”
“Stay strong, Annie.”
“You too, Ryan Dean.”
Crap.
She was playing the same game.
