Rick greets Sam aggressively. “What is this shit?”
“Front 242, Back Catalogue.”
“Makes me want a lead-lined jock. Only good thing about listening to it is it’s probably sterilizing you. You need a spotter?”
Sam nods.
And that’s the end of the conversation.
Finished first, Sam wants a shower. The locker room rackets with guys changing when he emerges. His duffel’s under the bench where he threw it when he entered. He hasn’t cracked his locker since walking out the previous day. He drops his sponge bag on top of the gym bag and reaches for the handle of his locker.
“Samson!” Chapin jumps up on the bench and struts down its center lane between the rank of lockers. “How was your New Year’s Eve? Big night in your racket, isn’t it? You jump anything besides batteries?”
Around them, the other guys quiet. It occurs to Sam they know something he doesn’t.
Chapin’s happy face has never been more blankly, murderously ecstatic, grin spread from ear to ear, eyes round with clownish glee. “Thought a you, actually. On account of I ran into your sister at a party.”
The only noise in the locker room now is the rattle of lockers, scratch of zippers, thunk of high-tops on benches, breathing.
“That Karen,” Chapin enthuses, “she’s a real party animal.” He buddies an arm over Sam’s shoulder and leans close to confide in a voice audible through the room. “Yup, you might say Karen was the party. First she got done up on every kind of shit we had and then she did everybody there. I myself—”
Sam lifts Chapin’s arm from his shoulder distastefully and turns him gently in a mocking ballet movement, locking Chapin’s arm behind him.
“—awwk.” Chapin’s smile vanishes in a croak.
“Must be proud of yourself,” Sam mocks. “Bet you were the high point of her night.” Releasing him, he shoves Chapin away from him. “Next time I see her, I’ll ask her if she remembers the chickendick.”
There is an explosion of jeering laughter.
The assistant coach pops his head into the room.
Chapin doesn’t notice. “Hey, shit-for-brains,” he snarls.
“You talking to me, jerkoff?” the AC inquires genially.
Moving away, Chapin mutters to Sam, “This isn’t finished.”
“Shaking in my boots,” Sam returns flatly without bothering to look at the creep.
He cracks his locker door. On the shelf lies a half-gallon plastic bag. He tugs it out far enough to determine it’s a dead rat, starting to bloat. Pinches the edge of the bag, sees it’s sealed, and draws it all the way. Silently, he balances it on his palm.
Rick jumps at the sight of it. “Fuck!”
A murmur passes through the locker room. Sam notes guys looking at each other and then looking away. The nearest trash can is the big plastic-lined barrel at the other end of the rank of lockers, twelve feet away.
“Eat this,” Sam says.
He pitches the bag of rat underhand. It describes a low parabola, below which guys duck and shout angrily, and drops into the trash barrel, where it explodes on impact. The smell is instantaneous and horrific.
The locker room clears with amazing rapidity amid outraged cursing. Sam dresses deliberately, though the stench is making him sick to his stomach. Long as they all got a whiff, he’s satisfied.
20
The bald Medusa on the lunchline and on his mind, Sam carefully averts his eyes as he enters the cafeteria. At the team tables, his usual place is an island, even Rick moving away from him. He regrets the rat in the locker room. It might have been more fun to serve it up here. From the girls’ team table, Nat gives him a little wave. He tries to smile back.
He empties most of his pail into his quivering gut, fighting the urge to goffle as fast he can and get the fuck out. With a mouthful of ham sandwich, he raises his eyes and allows himself to peek at the Mutant. As if she can sense his gaze upon her, she raises her eyes from her work but looks right at him with bemused contempt.
His sandwich sits in his gut in a dry hard lump. Shoving the paper into his bucket, dusting crumbs from his hands, he turns his attention to his teammates, staring at the table, meeting each and every pair of eyes for as long as the owner will look at him. Some of them immediately find their lunches or some conversation riveting. Others look back with stony impassiveness.
This is all horseshit, he decides. He should never have recanted his quitting.
The girls have the early practice after classes. Settling behind their bench, Sam notes the multiplicity of moves they have picked up from the boys. Not just moves, either. Not one of them runs like a girl anymore. They play more aggressively, less self-consciously. They play like boys.
Most of his team loiters in the vicinity of the gym—in the corridor around the vending machines or in the weight room—and some drift into the bleachers, to flirt with the cheerleaders and some of the female band members, just finished with their own practices. Occasionally, the action compels all eyes and there are shouts of encouragement, applause and whistles.
Each time this happens, Sam feels a little better, uplifted by the support one team is giving the other. He begins to turn over strategies to try to pull his team back together during their practice.
On court, the Mutant breaks fast and the scrimmage boils after her.
Rick Woods drops down next to him and wordlessly offers him a stick of gum. Fixed on the Mutant, Sam waves it aside but Rick stays there.
“Hey man.”
Sam glances at him.
“I got this extra breath,” Rick says. “Need to waste it on you.”
Reluctantly, Sam tears himself away from the unpredictable fluidity of the Mutant’s game.
“You piss me off,” Rick continues, “but
