Coach B smiled at us, all the way down the bench, like we were his grandkids here for a visit or something. “Well, look at you boys,” he said. “Marvelous, every one of you.” Then he gave a little nod like that made it true.
“Mind if I grab these?” he asked, waving a hand at the boxes in the corner.
“Sure, sure, of course,” said Coach C. Even he seemed softer around the old man.
“Would you like me to take this too?” Coach B asked, pointing to a sign in the corner I hadn’t even noticed. “You shouldn’t be saddled with my old philosophy.” Three words had been spelled out on the sign in bold lettering:
HEAD
HANDS
HEART
Coach C reached up and ran his finger along the edge. I think he forgot we were there, to be honest. It was like that sign took him straight back to his own days of sitting on this butt-numbing bench, feeling the sweat dry on his skin. “You can leave it,” he said. “If that’s okay. I might need a reminder someday.”
“Of course, son.” Coach B looked over us boys on the bench. His knees crackled like firewood as he bent to pick up one of the boxes in the corner.
“Boys, help Coach B with those. We’re finished here anyway. Good work today.”
Jake and me were on the end of the bench, so we got the other two boxes. We followed Coach B out to his car, if you could even call it a car. Really, it was more like one of those Jeeps you see in old war movies. We slid the boxes in the back and slammed the hatch shut.
“Thank you, boys,” Coach B said, and he reached out to shake our hands. It was all so formal. I hoped, hoped, hoped he wouldn’t ask us our full names. Even though I was only a sixth grader, I didn’t want him to recognize me and realize it was my waste of a brother who’d cost him the championship last season—and probably his job.
So of course that was when Kmart pulled up. He stumbled out of his truck, high as Everest.
“Kade Martin,” Coach B said. “I’ve been hoping I’d see you again.” He stuck out the same hand to Kmart as he had to us—and gave him the same smile too.
My brother spat at his feet.
“Get in the truck, Kolt,” he said. “Before he ruins your life too.”
He didn’t ruin your life. You did this to yourself. I wanted to scream it, to spit right back at him. And look what you did to him.
But instead I froze, like the weak-ass baby I was.
Coach B took a step toward Kmart. “Now, son…”
“I’m not your son. I’m the kid whose future you trashed because you expect everybody to be perfect like you.” Kmart’s voice got louder with every word, and he struck the passenger-side door with a hollow bang, bang, bang, right in rhythm. “Get in the truck, Kolt. Get in the damn truck.”
People were looking now, watching the show from the safety of their cars.
“He can’t,” Jake said, stepping between me and Kmart. “We have to help with the rest of the boxes. My mom is taking him home.”
Everybody knew there were no more boxes—except Kmart. He stared Jake down for what felt like forever, but Jake didn’t look away, even though Kmart was twice his size and ten kinds of unpredictable.
“Waste of my time,” Kmart finally muttered. He stumbled back to his truck, brushing past Jake’s shoulder hard enough to knock him off balance.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be driving,” somebody said, but Kmart just gave the whole parking lot the one-finger salute before slamming the door and swerving away.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked, feeling ready for that ride and too grateful to actually say thanks.
Jake looked toward Dollar Depot. “She’s at work,” he said. “Sorry. I don’t usually lie, I just…I think we’re walking.”
“Nonsense,” Coach B said. “I’ll take you as far as my place if you’ll help me get these boxes into the house.”
So that’s how we ended up at Coach B’s house the first time. That old Jeep had a motor so loud it was almost impossible to hear anything else, but I knew I had to say what I had to say before I lost the guts to say it.
“Thanks,” I told Jake. “My brother’s the worst.”
“Your brother reminds me of my dad,” he said. We had to practically shout to hear each other as we rattled down the road, but something about that felt right. Like the words hurt less when you didn’t have to whisper them.
“Your dad’s addicted too?” I asked.
“Was,” Jake corrected, and I wondered for half a second if he’d gotten clean, until I looked at Jake’s face and realized what he meant by “was.”
“Just alcohol,” he said, then corrected himself. “Well, not just.”
After that, there wasn’t anything else we needed to say about either of them. Not even when Kmart got caught selling and had to go to jail, or when he moved away without a word the day he got out.
We loved them and we hated them and we were never, ever going to be like them.
Jake is awake more of the time now, but he wishes he weren’t. All he wants is sleep.
His stomach cramps and clenches. He runs for the toilet in the corner, but not fast enough, and vomit splatters the floor, splashes his bare feet and the cuffs of his pants. The stains around the toilet tell him this has happened before, but he barely has time to register that fact before he’s throwing up again, leaning so far into the bowl that it spatters back in his face.
Afterward, he rinses the taste out with water from the faucet and wipes his mouth with the back of his arm. The wave has passed, but something—a premonition, maybe, or a hazy memory—tells him it won’t be long until the next one comes.
