The Hidden Man

You don’t answer. You open your locker and remove your helmet. Your right hand is still sore from the number you did on Jack, your father, last night.

Give me a fucking answer, Kolarich.

I’m thinking, you say.

He shoves you, and when a six-six, three-hundred-fifty-pound lineman pushes you, you fly sideways, landing on the floor.

We’re a team. We play as a team. We don’t have any room for this superstar crap. Are you a team player or a superstar?

You slowly get up and recover your helmet, still spinning on the floor. You feel your internal reservoir refilling with the hot venom from last night, the assault on your father. It felt good, you have to admit, better than it should have. Your hand balls into a fist and releases. You look again at the team captain, Karmeier, a physical mountain, mean as a snake, and you realize how much you hate him, how much you hate all of them.

Don’t ever try that again, you tell him.

Or what? Karmeier moves forward, held back by some of the others gathering around the spectacle. No, he’s a big boy. I think he’s threatening me. Are you threatening me, Kolarich?

Your fist closes and releases. Close and release. You want him to do it, you realize. You began to feel it last night, with Jack in the parking lot, and now the momentum builds into a free fall: You are letting yourself go backward. You’re a loser. A pretender. You don’t deserve all of this, a free ride at State, all the acclamation. You’re never going to make it. You’ll become like him.

Since the day you got here, you think it’s all about you. I’m so tired of your tough-guy bullshit.

You feel a smile on your face. Come here and say that, you tell him.

Oh, you’re gonna square off on me? he says, approaching you. You wanna-

It happens in an instant, a release so satisfying, one-two, a right and a left like lightning from your fists, the second punch producing a sickening crunch as this heap of a man crumbles to the floor. You are on fire, breathing heavily, watching him writhe on the floor in agony, his hands on his face. You part the spectators, shaking your left hand, wondering if you broke it, sure that you broke Tony Karmeier’s jaw. You use your right hand to push open the locker room door, never to return.

I CALLED PETE before I left work and checked that he had packed his bag. When I got home, I drove my car into the garage and closed the garage door. Pete came out through the kitchen door with the clothes he’d brought from his house following the arrest-and some of my wardrobe as well-in a bag, which he threw in the trunk. Pete was wearing a leather jacket and a blue baseball cap.

We waited a few minutes before leaving, so the whole thing wouldn’t look too strange, so no one would wonder why I pulled into the garage, closed the door, only to leave again right away. I backed out the car and drove away from my house. The tail, today a blue Chevy sedan, followed my car from a safe distance. We drove to the Supermax movie theater about a mile away and bought two tickets to a sequel about a wisecrack ing treasure hunter who seems to wear tuxedos a lot and, for a history nerd, shows tremendous composure under pressure.

Pete, in his leather jacket and blue baseball cap, bag slung over his shoulder, was silent as we walked toward the movie theater. We found Shauna Tasker where we said we’d meet, in the back row of the theater, so I could see anyone walking in.

“Hey there, fellas.” Tasker was in her typical contrarian mood. More important, she was wearing a leather jacket and blue baseball cap, identical to Pete. I checked my watch. In ten minutes, a cab would be pulling up on the street behind the theater. From the exit on the right of the big screen, Pete could walk to the cab in about ten steps.

“You have your money?” I whispered to my brother, as I kept my eyes on every person who walked into the theater. Pete couldn’t access an ATM machine without the possibility of someone inquiring. I’d taken out a couple thousand dollars in cash for him.

“I’m good,” he said. “I’ll pay you back.” Pete was doing his best to wear a brave face. He’d been shaken up pretty bad by those guys in the alley. It was more humiliating than physically painful. He had a lot of worries right now.

“I know you will.”

He nodded. The lights dimmed. Animated popcorn boxes and sodas told us to turn off our cell phones and keep quiet.

“When you’re in the cab, you’ll text me,” I said. “You’ll be fine, Pete.”

“I’m worried about you, brother.”

We looked at each other. I battled myself all over again, questioning myself, wondering if this was the right move. I was tempted to keep Pete close to me, but this felt like the better play. He’d be in an anonymous little suburban hotel, ordering room service for food and not showing his face much. It should work out.

“I gotta say this, Pete.”

“No, you don’t. I’m clean, Jase. I’ll be fine.”

I gripped his hand. Emotion strangled my throat.

“I better go.” Pete squeezed my hand and got up. I watched him intently as he walked down the aisle and out the exit door.

“He’ll be fine, Jason.” This assurance from Shauna. “And you’re covering my ticket, right?”

“Shut up.” I opened my cell phone and waited for the text message. It arrived, not two minutes later. I’m in. Can I put porn movies on your credit card?

I laughed, a brief moment of levity. Then I said a silent prayer for the only real family member I had left in this world.

When the movie was over, Mother Nature helped out with a rain storm. I used the weather as an excuse to get the car and pull up in front of the theater for Shauna, playing the role of Pete. All she had to do was keep her head down and pop into the car with the bag he had brought. There was not much of a chance that our surveillance could have made a distinction between my brother and my law partner. The identical leather jacket and blue baseball cap would be more than enough, as long as she kept her head down.

“I’m starting to feel like James Bond,” Shauna said. It was twice now she’d helped me fake out our tail, first lending me the car, now switching up with Pete and spending the night at my house.

We hung out in my living room for a while, though it was late and Shauna had an early day tomorrow. It felt like old times, back at State. After I was kicked off the football team for the misunderstanding I had with one of the team captains, I moved off-campus, into a five-bedroom house, which sounds nice until you factor in that eight of us lived there. Shauna was one of those people. We used to kill plenty of late nights, drinking the cheapest beer we could possibly find-how bad could it be if it was “Milwaukee’s Best”?-listening to REM albums, debating whether Automatic for the People was an interesting diversion for the band or a complete sell-out, discussing the merits of the Reagan Revolution, listing celebrities we’d sleep with-anything and everything. Easier times.

In another sense, it felt odd, maybe wrong, having a woman in this house for an overnight stay, the slightest hint of sexual overtone even if it was just Shauna. This was Talia’s house. It always would be.

Shauna stretched her arms over her head and yawned. The movement, however innocuous, brought back a memory from high school, the short interval when we were more than friends. Her eyes linked with mine and I blinked away, feeling like I’d been caught in the act of something forbidden but enjoying it nonetheless. It wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t make sense, not with Shauna, but it had felt more like a lifetime than four months since I’d experienced the sensation. I was still alive. I still could feel.

Shauna excused herself to bed, breaking the tension and leaving me to wonder whether it was mutual. But I had other things to consider at this moment.

I went to my own room and sat up on the bed, thinking things through. At midnight, I turned off the light. The darkness felt appropriate. I sat on my bed in the blackness, trying to focus a mind running wild. It was like trying to corral a bunch of roaches scattering from light. Outside the rain was rattling the window and drumming on the roof.