Tangerine

  "Do you want to go to the hospital?"

  "No. No way. I'm feeling better already."

  He studied me doubtfully. I blurted out, "Listen, Luis. We only have a couple of minutes, and I have to tell you something. I saw you at Lake Windsor High School. I saw what you did."

  Luis straightened up.

  "I saw you face down Erik and those other guys, and I saw Arthur Bauer hit you with a blackjack."

  His hand moved automatically up to his temple. "Is that what it was?"

  "Yes. And you have to believe me, Luis. They're dangerous. They're very dangerous."

  Luis, to my amazement, smiled. He was about to reply when the door at the far end opened and Theresa returned. He just said, "I'll talk to you about this later."

  Theresa came up and handed me two thick green blankets and a white pillow. Luis went back out, and I crashed.

  The next thing I knew it was six-thirty, and the crew was coming back in. Henry D. said to me, "The sun's coming up. We made it through the night."

  I pulled off the blankets and stood up, humiliated. But Tino came right up to me and said, "Hey, Fisher Man, thanks for helping us tonight."

  He held out his hand, and I shook it. I said, "Tino, I'm really sorry about what happened."

  "What? Hey, man, you're not used to this kind of work."

  "No. Not that. I mean at my house."

  Tino shook his head. "Oh, that. Well, we never should have gone over there."

  "Yes! You should! You should go over there. You're my friends. Or ... I want you for my friends. You're welcome at my house."

  Tino nodded and then said, "You can be our friend over here. All right?" I shrugged and nodded. He added, "Our daddy's driving to the takeout for some Egg McMuffins. You down with that?"

  "Yeah."

  "OK. Oh, and Luis says he wants to see you outside."

  "All right."

  I went out back and found Luis kneeling by a Golden Dawn tree with his face buried in the green leaves.

  I said, "Can you smell anything now?

  He laughed. "Yes. I can." He sat back and looked at me. "I can smell what it will be like."

  "So the Golden Dawns survived?"

  "Oh yeah. They all survived. They were the safest ones. When you're little like this, we can just cover you up with dirt, and you'll be OK." He checked behind me and said, "I want to finish our conversation, because I want you to know what's going to happen."

  "OK."

  "You know those two black dudes who were there? One of them is Shandra's brother?"

  "Yeah. Antoine Thomas."

  "Right. Well, Antoine and the other dude, the muscle man, don't care too much for Erik Fisher or his friend."

  I said, "Arthur Bauer."

  "Right. They told me to come back on Monday and we'd take care of business. They said that all the players have to be there on Monday to turn their equipment in. Is that right?"

  "I don't know. That sounds about right."

  "I'm just telling you this so you'll know. You seem kinda scared of Erik and Arthur Bauer."

  "Yeah. I am. Who wouldn't be?"

  Luis answered simply, "I wouldn't be. They're punks." He pointed one ropelike finger at me. "And you shouldn't be, either. You watch what happens on Monday. If Antoine keeps his word, two punks are gonna have new attitudes, right around three o'clock."

  Luis's uncle walked up and started talking to him, so I drifted back inside, thinking about my fear of Erik. How could I be so totally afraid, and Luis be not the slightest bit afraid, of the exact same thing? Which one of us saw it wrong?

  Theresa brought out a nine-inch portable TV, and we all gathered around it to eat our Egg McMuffins. The news people said that the cold front was now moving out of our area, but it had left a lot of damage behind, and it had "put some area growers out of business." They showed pictures of a grove that had been iced over; it was now dripping in the sun. Everyone in the hut watched in silence.

  After the news, Victor and his boys headed for home. I stood outside and waited for Mom. She pulled up right at eight o'clock. Her first words were, "Did you stay up all night?"

  "No. I slept."

  "Paul? You look awful."

  "I slept, Mom. But I think I'm coming down with a cold."

  Mom reached over and put the back of her hand against my forehead. "Yeah. You and half the population of Lake Windsor Downs." She sighed. "Well, I'm not going to have you sitting in a freezing-cold football stadium. You need bed rest."

  "You're right. I'd be better off at home."

  Mom thought for a minute and added, "Your father isn't going to like this."

  "I know. Just tell him I need my sleep."

  Mom sighed again. "I will. But you had better sleep."

  "I will."

  And I will. Just like the rest of the crew. But first, I had to write this all down.

  Friday, November 24

  I slept for eighteen hours yesterday. No one woke me up to go to the game. That was good. No one woke me up for Thanksgiving dinner, either. That was weird.

  It was four-thirty on my alarm clock when I finally opened my eyes. I lay there in the dark for another hour, then got dressed and went down to the kitchen. I was starving. As I was finishing a turkey sandwich, I heard the sound of the newspaper plopping onto the driveway.

  I walked outside. The air was cold, but nowhere near freezing. The wind was blowing from west to east, blowing the smoke of the muck fire through the starry sky.

  I walked back inside with the Times and sat on the floor of the great room. The headline of the sports section was "Lake Windsor Defeats Tangerine." Underneath that it said, "Antoine Thomas throws for 3 TDs, runs for 2, in 30–0 rout."

  I started to read about it, but then Dad wandered through in his pajamas on the way to the kitchen. He stopped and scowled at me. He said, "I thought you had a cold. I don't hear any coughing or sneezing."

  I answered, "Sorry, Dad, but I'm feeling better today."

  We locked eyes for a few seconds, then he continued into the kitchen. When he came back out he had a cup of coffee, and he had lost the scowl. He sat down on the floor next to me and began to talk about his favorite subject. "You didn't miss much of a game. You know that big center, Brian Baylor?"

  "Is he the one who hangs out with Antoine?"

  "Right. He's been snapping the ball to Antoine perfectly all year. Yesterday, I guess he forgot how. The kicking game stunk to high heaven, and it was all because of him. I think Coach Warner should have benched him." Dad pointed to the sports section. "Do they even mention Erik in there?"

  "No. They just say that the score should have been higher, but Lake Windsor missed all five extra points."

  Dad's eyes shot fire. "Missed extra points? Is that what it says? Erik didn't miss anything! He never even kicked the ball. The ball never got anywhere near him. Brian Baylor made five bad snaps in a row!"

  I couldn't resist. I said, "Well, at least we won. That's the important thing."

  Dad didn't even hear me. He was shaking his head back and forth. "It would have been nice to finish the season on a high note. With a big game. But this Baylor kid ruined it." He took a sip of coffee. "I don't know. Maybe he just wasn't used to snapping the ball to Arthur."

  "Arthur? You mean the coach actually put Arthur Bauer in the game?"

  "Oh yeah. He put all the seniors in. It was their last game. And it was a blowout. Of course he was going to play them all." He pointed at the paper. "Is Antoine the big story?"

  "Yeah. He's pretty much the whole story."

  Dad brooded about that. He finally said, "It's like Brian Baylor did it deliberately. Like he wanted to make Erik and Arthur look like fools. All five snaps were wild. They were high, or wide, or they bounced before they got there. He made Arthur jump for them, or dive for them, or chase them down. The last one went so high that Erik had to run it down himself and fall on it. If those Tangerine linemen had been faster, Erik could have gotten hurt."

  I th
ought, Just wait until Monday, Dad. Erik is going to get hurt. Arthur Bauer, too.

  We heard Mom in the kitchen rattling some pans, so Dad got up and joined her.

  I turned to page two and saw a large composite photo with this caption above it: "All-County Middle School Soccer Team." I studied the names and faces. I knew them all—four were from teams that I'd played against, and the other seven were from teams that I'd played on. The faces of the players, actually their school photos, were arranged in three rows, the way that a team would pose. Under each photo were the player's name, school, and position. One face, however, was missing.

  Across the top row the strikers included Maya Pandhi, Gino Deluca, and Tommy Acoso. The middle row, of halfbacks, included Victor Guzman and Tino Cruz. Across the bottom row one of the fullbacks was Dolly Elias, and the goaltender was Shandra Thomas. It was Shandra's face that was missing. There was an empty frame where her photo should have been.

  I stared at them for a long, long time. Did I want my own face to be up there? Yes, I did. Did I want to change what had happened to me this season? No. Not a minute of it. Not ever. Shandra had earned her place on this team. I wondered if she felt proud to see her name, if not her photo, in the Times.

  I walked out to the kitchen, found the scissors, and started to cut it out. Mom and Dad looked up.

  Dad said, "What's that?"

  "The All-County Middle School Soccer Team."

  "Yeah? Are you on it?"

  That question really hit me the wrong way. I couldn't believe he had asked me that. And yet it was so typical. I answered, "Sure I am, Dad. They picked me as the All-County Benchwarmer."

  He looked annoyed. He sounded annoyed, too. "Come on, Paul. Did you make the team or not?"

  We locked eyes again. "How many games did I play in, Dad?"

  He pulled back. "I don't know."

  "What position did I play when I did get into a game?"

  "How am I supposed to know that?"

  "OK. Here's one: How many field goals did Erik kick this year?"

  He stared at me, and then he blinked rapidly. "All right. Your point is taken."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means I understand what you're saying. You're saying that I know everything about Erik's season and nothing about yours. You're right, and I'm sorry."

  Mom looked up at him with interest.

  "All I can say, in my own defense, is that this was the critical season for Erik. College recruiters are watching him. A lot is riding on this season. His entire future in football is riding on it."

  Mom asked quietly, "What if Erik has no future in football?"

  Dad stared at her blankly, so she repeated, "What if Erik has no future as the placekicker for some big-time college football team?"

  Dad let out a short, uncomfortable laugh. "What are you talking about?" He looked at Mom, then me, as if we had lost our minds. Or worse, as if we had forgotten the Erik Fisher Football Dream. He said, as if to two morons, "Erik can kick a fifty-yard field goal."

  Mom continued, "I know he can. What if that's not enough?"

  Dad answered calmly. "Well, that's not enough. You have to have good grades. You have to show good character."

  Mom looked down at her coffee. Was she thinking what I was thinking? Did she know that Erik had no good character? Or was she still as clueless as Dad? Did she still believe blindly in the Dream?

  No one else spoke, so I went back to cutting up the newspaper. In the column next to the photo there was a notice, bordered in black, that caught my eye.

  The annual Senior Awards Night at Lake Windsor High School will be held on Friday evening at 7:30 P.M. in the school's gymnasium. This year's ceremony will include the dedication of a laurel oak tree in the memory of Michael J. Costello, the Lake Windsor football captain, who was killed by lightning on September 5.

  I said, "Do you two know about this Senior Awards Night next Friday?"

  Dad was still trying, unsuccessfully, to make eye contact with Mom. He answered, "Sure. We'll all be going. They're honoring Mike Costello. And all of the other senior players, of course. Bill Donnelly is going to be the master of ceremonies."

  I folded the sports section back up and handed it to Dad. The phone rang, and Mom picked it up. She looked concerned. She said, "No, we just got up. We haven't been outside at all." Then she said, "Oh my God." She got off the phone quickly and pointed at me. "Paul, you're dressed. Check all around the house. All around the outside."

  "What's wrong?"

  "That was Sarah from next door. She said somebody has smashed up all the mailboxes and spray-painted all over the wall."

  I went out through the front door. Mom hurried to watch me through the side window in the great room. I saw our neighbor's mailbox first. It was smashed, all right, like an aluminum can, and it was hanging by a thread from its pole. Then I looked over to where ours should have been. All I saw was the pole, bent at an acute angle. There was no trace of the mailbox. I looked up and down the street. About every other mailbox had been smashed, probably by a baseball bat.

  Then I went into the backyard. There was no paint on the inside of the wall, so I climbed up on top of it and vaulted over. I hit the ground, turned around, and saw it—swirling lines of white paint, like fake snow, against the gray of the wall.

  I was too close to make out what it said, so I started to back across the frozen mud ruts of the perimeter road. The wind was whipping up. The smoke was in my eyes, and my nose. I had to back all the way across before I could read the message. It said, SEAGULLS SUCK.

  I'm not sure what happened next. I stood there staring at this sight, breathing in the stench of the muck fire, and I started to get the feeling. I started to remember something. Some place. Where was it?

  The wind raised up brown clouds of dirt from the perimeter road and mixed them with the black clouds of the muck fire. The sun started to darken, like the moon was passing in front of it. And I started falling backward, as straight and as stiff as a tree.

  That's how Dad found me, stiff and unconscious. He had to pick me up and carry me across the road. He started yelling over the wall to Mom to bring the Range Rover around. I remember telling him, "I'm OK. I'm OK." And I was pretty much back to normal by the time they got me onto the couch in the great room.

  Mom said, "I'm going to call the doctor."

  I said, "No. No, really, I'm all right."

  Dad was totally stressed out. He started yelling at me, like it was my fault, "What happened to you? What did you do? Did you walk into a car?"

  I said, "No. No, nothing like that."

  Mom put her hand on my forehead.

  I said, "I don't know. I can't remember. I really can't remember."

  Mom looked into the backs of my eyes. She said, "This is all my fault. You had a cold to begin with, and then I sent you out into that disgusting air." She started into the kitchen. "I'm going to make you some tea."

  Dad stared at me for a few more seconds. Then he joined Mom in the kitchen and talked to her about the mailboxes and the spray paint. He said, "I bet kids from Tangerine High did it after yesterday's game. They were mad about getting blown out like that." He's probably right.

  Mom brought me a cup of hot tea with lemon. All day long she and Dad kept looking at me and asking me how I felt. I kept saying, "OK."

  That was true, and yet it wasn't. The whole truth is—I feel very weird. But I can't say why. I can't remember why.

  Not yet.

  Monday, November 27

  Today was supposed to be the day.

  Mom insisted that I stay at home, although I told her that I felt fine.

  I thought all day about Erik. About Erik and Arthur. At 10:00 A.M., I thought to myself, Erik and Arthur have no idea, at this moment, that they're going to face Luis again this afternoon. And that this time he won't be alone. At noon I thought the same thing. And I thought it again at two. I wondered if Erik would walk through the kitchen door with his eyes swollen and black.
Or with his nose broken. I wondered what kinds of questions Mom would ask him. And would he answer them? I figured that Erik and Arthur would take the time to make up a mutual lie—like they had gotten jumped by ten guys from Tangerine High School, maybe the same guys who had vandalized our neighborhood. That would sound a lot better than the truth—that their own teammates despised them so much that they helped a stranger beat them up.

  Anyway, Erik did walk through the kitchen door, but something, obviously, had gone wrong. He went straight to the refrigerator and grabbed a can of soda. I looked right at his face. There wasn't a mark on him. It hadn't happened. Something had gone wrong.

  I was disappointed, but still confident. Something had gone wrong. That was all. I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to think. Could it still happen to Erik and Arthur? When? How? Then it came to me: Yes, it could still happen. It could happen on Friday, outside of the Senior Awards Night. If Luis asks me about another time and place, that's what I'll tell him.

  Mom walked in with the phone. I hadn't even heard it ring. She said, "Not too long, please. I have calls to make before the homeowners' meeting tonight."

  I pressed the button. "Hello."

  "Hi, Paul? It's Kerri."

  I held the phone out at arm's length. Then I shook my head, like a wet dog, trying to clear my thoughts. I finally said,

  "Hi."

  "Yeah, hi. I, uh, I figured you were never going to call me, so I decided to call you."

  "Uh-huh. Look, I'm sorry. I've been meaning to call you." I held my hands out in a gesture that she would never see. "I just didn't."

  "Well, that's OK. Do you want to talk to me now?"

  "Sure."

  "I guess the last time I saw you was at the soccer game. You guys have a really great team."

  "Thanks."

  "I think it's great that you have girls and boys."

  "Yeah. It was great. Did you see the paper yesterday?"

  "I sure did."

  "Three girls from our team made All-County."

  "I saw that. Yeah. Did you see that thing about planting a tree for Mike Costello?"