Текст книги "Winger"

Автор книги: Andrew Smith

Соавторы: Andrew Smith
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

friday afternoon

IT WASN’T OKAY.

The police came before the end of lunch. I was summoned to the headmaster’s office. I had to tell them about seeing Joey when he left the dance, and how he looked upset but he wouldn’t say why, and who the guys were from O-Hall that went along with us.

The officers listened.

They wrote it all down.

But I didn’t tell them everything. How could I tell them everything?

At first, the policeman who talked to me seemed kind of nice and concerned about Joey. And he knew about how Joey had run away before. He told me that if Joey didn’t show up, they were going to search the campus and the woods in the morning.

Then the officer who interviewed me asked if I knew Joey was gay. And when I told him yes, he asked flat out if I was gay, or if I knew if Joey had a “lover” or not, and that just pissed me off so bad, I wanted to cuss, but I didn’t.

I shut up.

I told him he should go talk to someone else.

Stupid fucking bastard.

o-hall that night

JOEY NEVER SHOWED UP.

Something was wrong, and I knew it. I could feel it jangling my nerves like the sound of the empty whiskey bottle I’d kicked when I walked the hallway in the dark the night before.

I got back to O-Hall at about four o’clock that afternoon.

The place was quiet and empty, which was typical for a Friday afternoon. Downstairs, everything had been cleaned up from the night before. But I was still sick from that lingering feeling you just can’t shake after waking up from a terrible nightmare—remembering the muddy shoeprints, the water on the floor, the shower running in the bathroom, and those weird sounds I’d heard coming from the woods.

But it wasn’t a dream. Kevin Cantrell knew that. He knew enough about O-Hall and the boys we lived with, though, so it was no big deal to Kevin.

I could not make it not a big deal.

I was stressed out and in a bad mood from everything that had happened; and I wished I didn’t feel so alone, that Annie could be there with me.

As I passed by the downstairs hall door, I decided to go for a run before dinner.

I froze when I saw Mrs. Singer watching me from the other side of the door. I wasn’t about to open it, but somehow, she didn’t scare me as much as she used to. I still wouldn’t look at her face, though.

I just watched the doorknob and listened to see if she was going to come out.

She didn’t.

I went up to my room and changed out of my clothes and into my running things.

I didn’t go all the way up to Buzzard’s Roost. It was getting too dark, and I had to turn back. But I stopped at Stonehenge and sat down for a while on that same fallen tree where I’d sat so many times with Annie Altman.

I missed her so much. Even though she’d only been gone for a few hours, it felt like I’d never see her again.

I walked the wishing circle.

That night, Chas and I watched television with Mr. Farrow. Awkward. It was like sitting in a sauna naked together. We were the only ones left in O-Hall, but we didn’t say anything to him, or to each other. I could tell Mr. Farrow was uncomfortable around me, though, and I probably would have thought it was funnier if I could only get rid of the creepy feeling that I hadn’t been able to shake since the day before.

So, later, when we were lying in bed, I was so frustrated and sick of the silence that I actually broke down and started talking to Chas Becker.

“So, did you break up with Megan, or was it the other way around?”

I heard Chas exhale and roll over.

He didn’t say anything for about a minute, and then, finally, “Why do you fucking care?”

“ ’Cause I can’t stand how quiet it’s been.”

“She broke up with me. So, go for it, little Pussboy.”

“I already told you about that, Chas,” I said. “I’m sorry. Me and Megan aren’t doing anything.” I folded my hands behind my head and sighed. “Did the cops come and talk to you?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you say?”

Chas grunted. “What could I say? That we drink booze and play poker and do crazy shit? That maybe Joey’s just doing some stupid consequence or something? I don’t know anything about Joey. He just ran away.”

“Yeah. I hope he’s okay. I hope he comes back.”

“I always thought you guys seemed a little gay for each other,” Chas said.

I wanted to say, ask your girlfriend how gay I am, Betch, but I’d had enough fighting for a while.

“You’re an . . .” But I stopped myself because I didn’t want to cuss at him. “That’s messed up, Chas. Can’t Joey have any friends without it being about that? Aren’t you his friend too?”

“Me?” Chas said. “I don’t have any fucking friends.”

Go figure.

At least he was smart enough to know that much.

Chas Becker really was a genius, when it came to knowing how pathetic he was.

seven in the morning

I WOKE UP AT SEVEN.

When I climbed down from the top bunk, Chas rolled over and said, “What the fuck? It’s Saturday, dipshit.”

I wanted to kick him in the head so bad.

“I know. I just don’t want to stay in bed.”

Chas rolled toward the wall and put the pillow over his face.

I pulled on my warm-ups and slipped my feet into my running shoes.

I went outside into a cold drizzle. It felt like it was going to snow, and the clouds hung down so low and white that I couldn’t even see the tops of the trees around me. It looked like there was a pillow over the face of the world.

I headed for the mess hall.

Weekends were kind of fend-for-yourself eating arrangements at Pine Mountain. There was always plenty of self-contained microwaveable stuff left in the coolers for the kids who stayed, but there was no real food at PM, and there were no people to serve it, either.

But before I got to eat my breakfast, I saw what looked like about a hundred police officers, park rangers, and school staff, all gathered around the front gates to the school.

Now they were really looking for Joey.

I went back to O-Hall.

Chas Becker was not pleased when I pulled the covers off his face and actually touched his bare arm, shaking him.

“Wake up, Chas.”

“You are a total fag, Pusswing. You do realize you are touching me. Right?”

“They’re doing a search for Joey. In the woods. Get your fucking ass out of bed, and let’s help look for our captain.”

I fought the urge to shut my eyes. I guessed it would hurt just as bad if Chas knocked my teeth in, whether I watched him do it or not.

But he just took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and sat up.

When he put his bare feet down on the floor, he looked around our room in the foggy light and said, “It’s fucking cold.”

“Yeah.”

He held his hand out so I could help pull him to his feet.

Chas stripped and got into some thermals and sweats, gloves, and a hat. He looked like he was ready to go snowshoeing, and I have to admit I wished I had more layers on too.

At least I’d stuffed a couple microwave breakfast sandwiches into my pockets. They were still warm, so I kind of hated giving one up for Chas when we stepped outside and into the drizzle.

They tasted nasty, but Chas thanked me for bringing him breakfast in bed, even if, according to his understanding of the universe, it only proved how much of a homo I was.

We knew the places to look, anyway.

There was a big drainage culvert halfway between O-Hall and the highway to Bannock. It was where O-Hall boys sometimes went to smoke weed or cigarettes with their friends, or, if they were alone, to jerk off to some nasty old porn mags everyone seemed to leave there.

Nobody was there.

Chas took a piss against the side of the drainpipe and asked if I had any cigarettes or chew.

I shook my head.

He said, “Yeah. I didn’t think so.”

“You really think I’m a pussy, don’t you?”

Chas stared at me, unblinking, like a rhino or something equally terrifying, standing three feet away from me while he tucked his dick back inside his thermals, and said, “Fuck. You? You’re about the most unpussy sack of shit winger I’ve ever seen on a rugby pitch in my fucking life. I think half your scrawny-ass weight must be taken up by balls. Winger.”

I nodded.

I wished I had a cigarette to give him after that.

We followed the lake around toward Stonehenge.

It started to snow, a wet, Pacific Northwest snow that fell in clumps, soaking and unpleasant. We ran into two Forest Service rangers near Stonehenge. They got excited when they saw us, and took out the photocopied pictures they’d been carrying of Joey’s school ID, holding the images between their eyes and us like they were some kind of prism that could sort out and break up the bullshit from the truth.

Nothing.

But we kept looking.

saturday afternoon

THEY FOUND JOEY IN THE woods, not far from O-Hall, at about three o’clock that afternoon.

He was tied to a tree, stripped naked, and had been beaten to death.

later

I NEED TO VENT.

But I can’t.

The words won’t come.

playing the game

I’LL BE HONEST. I DIDN’T cry.

I didn’t even say anything at all.

Because I didn’t want to hear it, so I just didn’t talk to anyone anymore.

Annie and I would walk together. Sometimes, we would go to the wishing circle, and I’d always hold her hand. When I needed to, I would whisper to her. She was the only one.

But I stopped talking after Joey died. I was too afraid.

My parents tried to take me out of Pine Mountain. They said I needed help.

I sent them a letter so they’d know I would be okay, and in it, I wrote that taking me away from Annie would kill me. So, after two weeks, Annie’s mother and father came to Pine Mountain so they could see me.

Doc Dad watched me play rugby. I gave him the Pine Mountain RFC shirt he wanted, but I didn’t talk to him. He shook my hand, and I could tell he was happy to see me, but I couldn’t look him in the eyes, because I knew they’d look like hurt, and I wasn’t going to cry in front of anyone.

I swear to God, when I played, sometimes I would see Joey out there leading the back line, but it was always someone else.

During our game, I could hear Doc Dad on the sidelines, cheering. He enjoyed the game. It made me feel good. I liked Annie’s father.

Doc Mom came to see me, alone, in my room.

We didn’t say anything, and it was dark. The window was covered. I sat on my bed, and she sat across from me in a chair.

It was like that for twenty minutes: just dark nothing. Then she stood up and sat beside me on my bed and she put her arm around my shoulders, and I began talking.

I told her about my iPod and how I sang for Joey the last time I ever saw him.

After a while, she said, “Anyone in the world would be so lucky to call you their friend, Ryan Dean.”

I told her about how Joey always stuck up for anyone, even people he didn’t like. And I told her the story about how Chas made me drink beer the night before school started. I told her about how we drank whiskey, too, before Halloween, and I’d peed in Chas’s and Casey’s drinks that night when Joey drove us into Bannock to get costumes and we lost Chas but picked up Screaming Ned.

And telling that story made me smile, but it hurt so much.

So when I was finished talking about Joey, Doc Mom said, “Okay, Ryan Dean, I am not a therapist anymore. Now I’m just a mom.”

Then she squeezed me so tight and she kissed my head and said, “I am so sorry, baby. I am so sorry,” and we both cried for I don’t know how long.

Annie waited outside. But when I was finished with my crying, I told Doc Mom that I couldn’t go out.

“I don’t want anyone to know I was crying,” I said.

Doc Mom said, “Okay, Ryan Dean. I’ll wait as long as you want me to.”

“I’ll be okay, Doc Mom.”

in the boys’ dorm

ON THE DAY THEY FOUND joey, the police sealed off O-Hall, and we never went back there again.

Never.

They talked to Chas and me for hours, separately. I told them almost everything, but not the stuff I didn’t think would matter.

They didn’t ask, anyway.

Casey Palmer and Nick Matthews killed Joey that night of the dance. They got drunk. They were mad. They beat him until he stopped being Joey.

I loved Joey Cosentino.

After I told the police what I knew about Casey, they went to his home.

Casey Palmer and Nick Matthews never came back to school. I heard they both confessed right away, and I figured it was because Casey didn’t want it coming out in his trial about how he’d been chasing after Joey for so long. That’s what I think, but I could be wrong.

Either way, I didn’t care about Casey’s reasoning.

Pine Mountain closed down O-Hall. None of us ever saw Mr. Farrow or Mrs. Singer again. They were gone, cut loose. Nobody needed them, and nobody needed anything like O-Hall again, either.

I’ll be honest. I was actually sad about them closing down O-Hall, as weird as that sounds. I wished I could go back to the noise and the smell, the crowded and dirty bathroom.

They moved me and Kevin and Chas in together at the boys’ dorm, each of us with our private bedroom, and the big living room where we’d sometimes fight over what to watch on our television.

We talked about it once, much later, and we decided that we were all better suited to live in O-Hall, so I told Kevin and Chas that I was going to do my best to get them to reopen it and then I’d do something bad so they would have to send me there for my senior year.

Chas said, “You’re a fucking idiot, Winger.”

Yeah. I know.

Chas Becker and I became friends. He didn’t turn me into an asshole, and I didn’t teach him how to draw comics. It was a balanced relationship, but a weird one.

Wingers and forwards are not allowed to be friends.

But Chas and I needed each other.

He picked on me. That was to be expected. Kevin Cantrell, like always, was the calming peacemaker in our new three-man family. We played poker on Sundays. We invited Seanie Flaherty and JP Tureau to the games.

There were no more consequences.

How could you top the magnificent shit we had done in O-Hall?

How could you ever make anything worse?

The thing about rugby is this: You can hate a guy off the pitch who will save your fucking balls on the pitch when you play on the same side. There is nothing more glorious than that.

One time, in the boys’ dorm, while we were playing a game of Hold ’Em, I made JP Tureau laugh.

I thought, When we are seniors, me and JP are going to be cool again.

thanksgiving

THIS TIME, I REMEMBER TO take off my belt before I walk through the metal detector at the airport, so I avoid the humiliation of a second strip search from Officer Nutgrabber.

What happened to Joey messed me up worse than anything I ever had to recover from. And I’ll be honest. It scared me to leave Pine Mountain, even if it did mean spending four days with Annie. I couldn’t sleep those nights before Thanksgiving came.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I kept thinking something terrible would happen if I left Kevin and Chas.

But I knew I was being stupid and that I had to do something to make myself get over being afraid, if I was ever going to grow up and get better.

After all, I was supposedly on a mission to do just that—to reinvent Ryan Dean West—in my junior year at Pine Mountain Academy.

Well, fuck that.

We hold hands for the entire flight. I point out the window, grinning, and say, “Remember?” I kiss her when we cross the Columbia River, and Annie smiles and says, “You are such a pervert.”

I imagine that there will never be a moment in my life when I am not in love with Annie Altman. Being back on Bainbridge Island is almost like filling my lungs up with the same air again, the air that smells so green and thick with the ocean.

We walk out on the beach in the freezing and damp cold of the evening. Her parents watch us go, standing in the open doorway. But they leave us alone.

“I’m going to be better, Annie.”

“First thing tomorrow, we’re going for a run. Even if it’s raining. You can tear your clothes off if you feel like it, and we’ll jump in the hot tub when we’re done.”

“You’re asking for the Wild Boy to return, you know.”

And Annie laughs and takes off, running down the beach. I chase after her, but she lets me catch her too easily, and we kiss right there as her parents watch us.

I know it’s kind of ridiculous, but I realize now how wrong that old pervert Mr. Wellins is. Almost nothing at all is ever about sex, unless you never grow up, that is.

It’s about love, and, maybe, not having it.

What an old, delusional idiot he is.

But what do I know?

I’m just fourteen.

quiet time

I’LL SAY IT NOW. I didn’t talk for those weeks because I was afraid of the words.

The words came together and said how Joey died: alone and scared.

And he never did anything bad to anyone.

Ever.

But when I was quiet, I could hold on to Annie’s hand, and that was a word that didn’t need to be spoken. And Doc Mom, sitting with her arm around me and listening and crying, that made words too.

The same words that make the horrible things come also tell the quieter things about love.

I found out something about words. There are plenty of words I can put on paper, words I can see with my eyes and scribble with my hand, that I never had the guts to say with my mouth.

Sometimes, I used to think I was brave; but I don’t believe that anymore.

And then it’s always that one word that makes you so different and puts you outside the overlap of everyone else; and that word is so fucking big and loud, it’s the only thing anyone ever hears when your name is spoken.

And whenever that happens to us, all the other words that make us the same disappear in its shadow.

Okay. I got it out.

Time to be quiet.

I can breathe again.

ANDREW SMITH is the author of several award-winning novels for young adults, including The Marbury Lens. He lives in a very remote area in the mountains of Southern California with his family, two horses, two dogs, and three cats. He doesn’t watch television, and occupies himself by writing or bumping into things outdoors and taking ten-mile runs on snowy trails. He maintains a blog and website about his strange writing life at ghostmedicine.blogspot.com.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Andrew Smith

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Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins

JACKET DESIGN BY LUCY RUTH CUMMINS

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHY BY MEREDITH JENKS

JACKET ILLUSTRATION BY SAM BOSMA

The text for this book is set in Adobe Garamond.

The illustrations for this book are rendered in charcoal and ink washes.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Andrew (Andrew Anselmo), 1959-

Winger / Andrew Smith. – 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

ISBN 978-1-4424-4492-8 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4424-4494-2 (eBook)

[1. Bording schools—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—

Fiction. 5. Rugby football—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S64257Wi 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2011052750

Contents

Acknowledgments

The Toilet World

Part One: The Overlap of Everyone

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Part Two: The Sawmill

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Part Three: The Consequence

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Six

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Chapter Eighty

Chapter Eighty-One

Chapter Eighty-Two

Chapter Eighty-Three

Chapter Eighty-Four

Chapter Eighty-Five

Chapter Eighty-Six

Chapter Eighty-Seven

Chapter Eighty-Eight

Chapter Eighty-Nine

Chapter Ninety

Chapter Ninety-One

Chapter Ninety-Two

Part Four: Words

After Midnight

Friday Morning

Lit Class

Lunchtime

Friday Afternoon

O-Hall That Night

Seven in The Morning

Saturday Afternoon

Later

Playing The Game

In The boys’ Dorm

Thanksgiving

Quiet Time

About Andrew Smith