I knew Errol wouldn’t be so stupid, but what did worry me was the reaction the rest of the players had. They weren’t finding it difficult to imagine Reshawn’s disdain for the team tipping over into something as unconscionable as snitching on our new starting quarterback. In fact, that’s precisely the kind of shit Cousin Shawn would pull. I continued to speak up for Reshawn, saying he was going to be on this team another three years, and there was just no way he would do something to guarantee everybody despised him for the rest of his time here.
After Skellie, I got a ride from Devonté back to the apartment. When I walked inside, I found Reshawn sitting on our scratchy living room couch reading a paperback edition of Mumbo Jumbo, which Professor Grayson had bought him as a thank-you gift for all the work he’d done this summer. Reshawn set the open book on his thigh when I appeared, and the hopeful look on his face made it clear I’d made an ass of myself in front of the team.
—She didn’t find anything, I told him.
—What? he said, the book falling to the floor as he sat up.
—Are you trying to make your life miserable? Is this, like, intentional?
He stood and picked up the paperback, twisting it with his big, strong hands like the neck of an animal he was strangling. His eyes were glassy and shallow. He dropped the book on the couch and walked past me, slamming the door to his room. I heard him on the phone with someone—Jamie, I assumed.
I sat on the couch, angrier with Reshawn than I’d ever been. This was my team, Devonté’s team, Jimbo’s team. We had put thousands of hours toward a season that Reshawn had so impulsively, insanely endangered. From these thoughts my mind jumped to Thao, to Reshawn’s lazy, knee-jerk bigotry toward him, and by extension toward me. How could I ever have thought this kid wasn’t the biggest asshole I’d ever known?
Twenty minutes later Reshawn’s door opened. He was holding a duffel bag. I could tell immediately what was happening.
—Please don’t.
—Professor Grayson’s in Savannah until school starts. He said I can stay with him. I’ll take out loans and apply for financial aid next year. My parents are going to have to learn to take care of themselves.
He snatched my car keys off the kitchen table.
—No, I said. You’re not taking my fucking car.
—Miles.
—Don’t give me—
—You know what I see every time I walk past the chapel? Every single time? My body, falling from the top of the tower. I swear to God I can feel the air against my face.
Was he being serious? Or was he trying to manipulate me? His eyes seemed even shallower than before.
—Please, he said, voice cracking.
SIX
Spiderwebs hung between the iron handrails of the outdoor staircase, big as window screens and bedizened with thick beads of dew. We had nothing like this in Sillitoe, and all summer long I had liked opening our front door to find the webs waiting for me, harvesters of the heavy southern light, strange devices that never failed to revivify the fact that Blenheim was the most exotic place I’d ever been. And yet this morning the sight of the webs drained me, almost sickened me, and I hated having to break through one after another with my body on my way down the stairs, hated how the sticky wet strands clung to my arm hairs and nape, wisped off my elbows, knuckles, nose, and fingertips. I decided to walk to the Hay rather than get a ride from a teammate and risk him asking why I wasn’t driving myself, and as I made my way through the hot, overripe day I kept ruffling my hair and brushing my body, half crazed by the thought that the one strand of web I hadn’t gotten off yet was the very one being ridden by a brawny brown spider.
When I arrived at the Hay’s first-floor hallway, a long line of players had already formed to report to camp. Everybody seemed to be gossiping about Reshawn’s snitch on Errol, distorting details of the story like taffy, one-upping each other about what they would have done had Reshawn tried pulling that shit on them, I’d a choked him the fuck out, I’d a given him the pencil case with a bow on top, I’d a—goddamn, I don’t know what I woulda done. But for all the disgust in people’s voices, I also heard relief. They might not ever manage to surpass Reshawn on the field or in the classroom, but they sure as hell would never have snitched.
Listening to all this just worsened my anxiety, and I decided to get it over with. I was going to have to break the news about Reshawn one way or another, and it would be better to tell Coach Zeller one-on-one rather than take him by surprise in the team meeting at eleven. I left the line and rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, which was first-day festive: secretaries tan and recharged from Outer Banks vacations, assistant coaches jolly after enjoying the longest stretch they’d have with their families all year, phones ringing off the hooks, staplers giving off satisfying smashes. Miss Gemma, the head secretary, waved me back to Zeller’s office.
The door was open and Zeller was sitting behind his desk.
—Miles! How you feelin’ today? Been meanin’ to tell you how happy we were with you in Skellie.
—Thanks, Coach.
I closed the door and sat in a chair across from him.
—Somethin’ wrong? he asked.
—Did you hear about what happened with Errol yesterday?
—Some kinda misunderstandin’ in y’all’s French
