“We got a problem here,” Coach says.
Sam slumps in the chair, waiting for the roof to come down on his head.
“You boys,” Coach continues with a mournful shake of his head. He gives up a huge sigh. “Jeez. I dunno. Sometimes. What to do with you.” He places his hands on his desk blotter in an attitude nearly of prayer and looks at Sam expectantly. “What are we going to do, Sam? What are we going to do?”
Numbly, Sam tries to summon up some formula, some phrase, to explain his silence, his complicity.
Coach breathes heavily through his nose.
“We got this game to play tonight and it really really feels like you guys are gonna go out there and drop it.”
Sam closes his eyes and dares a shallow breath. This isn’t about New Year’s Eve. Just about tonight.
Suddenly Coach slaps his palms upon the desk explosively and Sam jumps, eyes immediately wide, taking in Coach’s glare. Coach points a shaking forefinger at Sam. “You!”
Coach rants a long long time. Sam glazes over, only to have Coach slap the desk or shove a finger halfway up his nose or half-lunge at him over the desk, jerking him back to reality. Huge circles darken the armpits of Coach’s shirt, his tie acquires a strangled look from being yanked vehemently several times and his freckled pate is dewy with perspiration. Eventually he runs down and collapses into his chair.
Sam glances at the clock.
Following his line of sight, Coach sits up again abruptly.
“You’re here as long as I want you, bud,” he snarls.
Hastily Sam drops his gaze to his feet.
“Now we got this game tonight,” Coach says. “And we’ve got to play it whether you bunch a prima donnas feel like getting off your sweet asses and risking your nail polish and your earrings and your hairdos or not. Gimme that folder over there, you overgrown greasemonkey, and if you can spare another few moments of your valuable time—I realize you got so many other things to do, Styles, what with trying to pass shoelace tying and getting your buttons done up in order and blasting out your brains with that noise and don’t gimme that old-fogey look, I happen to think the Beach Boys did some classic music which was at least healthy, and I’m not the only person who thinks that stuff you listen to not only makes you deaf, it makes you stupid”—Coach pauses to scatter the contents of the folder over his desk—“if in your case that’s possible, here it is, the player roster for Dyer’s Mills. If!”—he glares at Sam—“you could give it your precious attention, maybe we could discuss some vague game plan for tonight?”
The ringing bell finally frees him.
Glimpsing Billy Rank ahead of him in the corridor, Sam catches up with him.
“How’d it go, Billy?”
Billy squints. “What?”
“The hack session.”
Billy slouches and looks nervously about. “The shits. It was the pits and the shits. Everybody’s gotten very fucking weird. We could hear Coach ripping your ass too. You gonna quit again?”
Sam rests a reassuring hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Think I should, Bilbo?”
“Jeez, no!” Billy blinks rapidly. “I mean, holy shit. What would we do without you?”
“I bet you’d be fine.” Sam grins. “Hey, Billy, you guys will be playing without me next year. And Rick too. You’ll probably be starting.”
Billy grins too but with a distinct uneasiness. He’s clearly not at all sure that’s such a wonderful idea.
“What do you think about the game?”
Sam slaps his back encouragingly. “I’ll play it as soon as I hear the buzzer, Billy.”
When he takes his seat next to Rick on the bus, there is awkward silence between them. Both boys seal their ears with headphones. Rick cracks a textbook. Sam closes his eyes, though he is too tense to sleep. They’re going to lose this game, he thinks. Can’t win without a team. As the bus pulls out onto the road, Sam opens his eyes. Sitting up, he tugs down his ‘phones and nudges Rick, who glances at him and then stares out the window. Then Rick sighs, closes his book and knocks back his headphones.
“We got a problem,” Sam begins.
Rick slumps down lower in his seat, so his long legs knee the back of the seat in front of him.
“Right,” he says in a low voice. “You’re the problem. Been hot shit so long you forget you’re part of a team. You owe the team your first loyalty, man. Where the fuck is it?”
Sam touches the dark bruise on his cheekbone where Rick hit him. His mouth opens but nothing comes out.
Rick leans closer to continue his harsh on Sam.
“I finally hear from everybody but you about you yanking Fosse and those yoyos out of a snowbank. Might have known Gauthier would be in the middle of it. So how’s it feel, blowing off the team ‘cause some idiots got loaded with three little sluts and played trains with ‘em? Wish you’d tell me how you wrecking the team is gonna stop anybody from getting stupid if they want. You’re being a self-righteous prick and over Gauthier. I should have expected you to get hard for a hopeless waste like her. Why didn’t you just get in line and fuck her like those other fools and get it out of your system? Might have found out what it’s like to be a human being.”
Clamping his headphones over his ears, Rick turns to the window.
Beside him, Sam shivers in a cold sweat, his jaws clenched achingly. He flips up his own headphones, punches the play button on his Walkman and closes his eyes. If that’s all it takes, I qualify. A suregod human being. I fucking hate it.
The Mutant curls her lip and struts to the boos of the Dyer’s Mills fans. From among his sullen teammates in the bleachers, Sam breaks out laughing at her showmanship.
Three rows below, Fran Pettit applauds, stamps her feet and whistles through her fingers. Sitting next to Fran, Paul Romney swivels around to
