He takes a deep breath and inserts the second needle and her fingers dig into his torso. He does the others as fast as he can, three, four, five, while she murmurs okay, okay, okay, and when the last one goes through she shudders. Her eyes are too bright but she isn’t going to admit to an instant’s pain, though Sam would like to be able to go to the bathroom and vomit. His hands are shaking as he cleans her violated ear of the tiny drops of blood the piercings have drawn. He watches while she inserts the studs herself.
“Maybe we’ll both be healed enough to wear earrings for the states,” she speculates.
Sam grimaces. Five regular-season games remain on the schedule and then they will be in the regional playoffs. Beyond that he’d rather not think, not until they have clinched their chance. There are a thousand tales of little David schools skinning into tournaments by a fraction of a point and punching out the top-seed Goliath in the quarterfinals. And for every one, a matching thousand of top-dog teams watching the title they were sure they already owned slip into the hands of a hungrier one.
If the queasiness he is feeling is not actually hunger, eating might still appease it. He gets up and opens the refrigerator door. Rubbing his stomach, he considers the options. He takes out the milk and half a chocolate-coconut-cream pie, his favorite, and puts it on the table.
Deanie is still studying her ear in the mirror.
“You gonna wear your face chains ever again?” he asks.
“Sure. I figure they’ll cover up the scar.”
He pours milk into glasses and takes out forks and napkins. He halves the remainder of the pie and places the plate between them. Deanie waits until he has forked into one wedge of the pie and then takes a bite of the same section.
“I don’t want a whole piece,” she says.
He does but manages not to say so.
“What do you think? About my face chains?”
He’s a little surprised to be asked. “It’s your face. I like your chains. They’re kind of dangerous though.”
She touches the scar, as she does many times a day. He reaches out and takes her hand from her face and closes his hand around it on the table and she smiles at him. “You miss my other chains?”
It’s not teasing. She wants to know.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t miss them. I always liked them though. I like the contrast between your skin and the metal.”
She laughs as if that’s her favorite thing about him.
“Do you want some new ones? I could make you some in metal shop,” he asks.
“Would you?”
In the living room, the tube suddenly goes mute and Reuben wanders into the kitchen. He glances at the paraphernalia scattered among the dessert plates—rubbing alcohol, needles, cotton balls—and squints at Sam’s ear, but then is distracted by the remaining wedge of pie. He rummages for a fork and picks up the pie plate from the table.
“When you gettin’ a tattoo?” he asks.
Sam and Deanie laugh. Reuben laughs with them.
“Thought I’d shave my head first,” Sam says.
Reuben nearly chokes. “Oh shit,” he finally mutters. “Sammy, I promised myself in 1967 I’d never make an issue of how my kids wore their hair and I’m not going back on that.” He dumps the pie plate into the sink. “I think I’ll say goodnight.”
As his father ducks up the back stairway, Sam begins to clear the table. Deanie discards the used cotton balls and picks up the alcohol and needles.
“Could you put the milk away?” he asks.
Her mouth tightens. “You took it out.”
Sam reaches past her, picks up the carton and puts it back into the refrigerator.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Yeah, and fuck you very much, too.”
“Jesus, Deanie, come off it. It wouldn’t hurt you to do more around here, you know. Be a little more considerate. We’ve only got the two bathrooms for the five of us and no time in the morning to screw around. I’m shaving at the kitchen sink every day, cutting myself all to hell trying to get out of Pearl’s way. You waltz in and tie up the goddamn bathroom for hours. You could help with the dishes after supper once in a while, offer to run and sort a load of laundry, anything.”
“I helped clean up after supper last Friday when you went to work with your dad—don’t tell me I don’t do anything,” she counters. “Just once you could tell me I was doing okay.”
When he tries to put his arms around her, she twists out of his embrace and hurries from the room. He follows her, apologizing to her, to the sunporch, where she throws herself face down on the daybed. Sitting down next to her, he rubs his fingertips up and down the hollow between the prominent cords at the base of her skull.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her. “You’re hell with a darning needle.”
The noise she makes into the pillow sounds suspiciously like a giggle.
“Best hook in the state,” he continues. “Possibly in the known universe.”
Definitely a giggle this time.
“You come louder than anybody else in this house.”
Her body jerks and she pounds the pillow with her fists and shrieks. Rolling over, she bats him with the pillow. He knocks the pillow aside and tackles her, catching her by the wrists and pinning her to the bed with his weight while she wriggles and squirms under him. She grabs his neck and begins to moan and groan as loudly as she can.
“Ooooh,” she gasps, “you’re so gooood, oh ‘god, oh shit, oooh!” and fakes a long orgasmic ululation that leaves him red-faced and begging her to stop.
“You’re gonna pay for this,” he whispers into her ear.
A constipated squint wrinkles Coach’s face and then an expression of outrage creases his long features.
“What next? You gonna shave your head
